4-1-21 - Maundy Thursday

You can listen to this reflection here. This Holy Week, Water Daily looks at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.

Andrew of Capernaum (again!) - My brother! Jesus sure nailed it with the nickname he gave him, Petros, the rock. Never met anyone so hard-headed. And lovable, ornery, faithful, cowardly – all rolled into one ball of leap-before-you-look, speak-before-you-think energy. He’s been like that since we were kids – got me into trouble more times than I want to remember, and usually all I was doing was watching.

So tonight, when Jesus got up from the table, tied on a towel and started to wash our feet, we’re all looking at each other, mortified – it’s Peter who put into words what a lot of us were thinking. “Lord, you’re gonna wash my feet? Think again!” Jesus just looked at him with that mixture of irritation and love he so often had for Peter, and said, “If you don’t let me wash you, you have no part with me.” But Peter doesn’t let it rest – he has to argue. Argue with our Master! On this night, above all nights. “Okay, wash all of me, then! Why stop with my feet?”

Jesus had an answer for him, of course. He always did. It was their game – Peter pushing as hard as he could, Jesus coming right back at him. How they loved each other. Love each other.

It was hard for Peter to submit to being cared for. Hard for all of us, I guess. When Jesus got to me, I didn’t want him touching my feet. They’re not pretty. They were filthy, as feet are in our time and place. But he focused on that task like it was the only thing in the world he had to do. He got them clean, he rinsed and dried them, and I just had to sit there and receive. I think that was the hardest of all the things Jesus has asked us to do in the three years since I met him along the banks of the Jordan. Just sit and receive his gift. Helpless.

I didn't know that that’s all I would be doing for the next 24 hours – watching him give his life away for me, helpless to help him, nothing left for me but to receive his gift. And if I have trouble being this still and helpless, what on earth must my poor brother be going through?

How are you at receiving the gifts God wants to give to you? How are you at receiving care from others? It’s harder for most people to submit to having someone else wash their feet than it is to wash another’s (unless we’re paying for a pedicure…). Yet arguably our most important spiritual task is learning to receive the love and grace and power of God so we can share it freely with others.

You are welcome to join my congregations for online worship at 7 this evening - here is the link. Have a basin and water readyOur Holy Week line-up of mostly online services is here.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here.  Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.

3-31-21 - The Other Judas

You can listen to this reflection here. This Holy Week, Water Daily looks at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.

Judas, son of James: Why is this night SO different from any other night! The tension at the Seder table was thick enough to cut. Even after the weirdness of the footwashing, it was clear the troubles were getting to him. Jesus can stand pressure better than most, but nobody can take months of death threats and rumors and not be affected. Nothing he said that evening made sense, not the washing, certainly not the words about the bread and the wine… His body? His blood?

Then he said one of us would betray him. One of us? We loved him! We believed in him. We’d left everything to follow him. Why would one of us turn him in to the authorities? We all looked at each other, at Jesus. He wouldn’t give a name – he just said, ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’

I am so glad he didn’t say the name – because it was Judas! He handed the bread to Judas Iscariot. The other Judas. Or is it me who is the other Judas? Yes, Jesus had two disciples named Judas. You know a lot about the Iscariot. Me – you only know by name, in a list of those disciples called by Jesus to be among his twelve closest followers. I don’t even make every list – I’m only mentioned in Luke’s story.

But I was there, day in, day out, traveling with him, helping to heal the sick, proclaim the Good News to those who would listen. I was with him in the rain, in the mud, in the sunshine, at the dinner parties. We never knew what was going to happen next. Only that he could transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope.

The other Judas was with us through it all too, committed. I don’t understand how he turned like that. Sure, he was really upset a few nights ago at dinner, when Mary poured all this expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet. He looked like a walking thunder cloud. Would that be enough to cause him to sell Jesus out?

Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do,” and Judas left the room. Left our company. We thought maybe he'd gone to pick up some supplies before the Sabbath began tomorrow, but… he was on a different errand.

I still believe Jesus can transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope. But even this?

You’ve probably been at some tense family meals in your life… you may even have known betrayal. How does it help our faith to know Jesus experienced those things?

Can we spare some sympathy for Judas Iscariot? Can we forgive those who have betrayed us? It’s never too late. We can start by asking God to give us the grace to see that person as God sees them, with compassion. And then allow God’s grace to take hold of us, gradually or all at once. New life...

You are welcome to join my congregations for online worship at 7 this evening - here is the link. Our Holy Week line-up of mostly online services is here.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here.  Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.

3-30-21 - Andrew of Capernaum

You can listen to this reflection here. This Holy Week, Water Dailywill look at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.

Andrew of Capernaum: Wow – this movement of ours is really growing! Philip just came over and told me some Greeks wanted to meet Jesus – they’d heard of him! They’re in town for Passover, and they want to meet Jesus! Our Jesus. I was really excited to go tell him.

But he didn’t seem thrilled – he just got really quiet. He said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” – but where you’d think “glorified” was a good thing, he seemed to dread it. And then this cryptic thing about grains of wheat falling into the earth and dying…

We’re all worried about him. And about ourselves – if they arrest him, will they take us too? I can tell my brother Simon is nervous – just makes him more blustery and “Let ‘em come for me.” After the thing will Lazarus the rumors got more intense – those leaders at the temple don’t want Jesus getting this kind of attention. And maybe they’re afraid of his power. Because no one has ever seen anything like his power – bringing someone four days dead back to life? Who does that?

“The hour,” he said. Has everything we’ve been doing with him for three years been leading up to one moment? Is something going to happen that will change everything? I thought we’d just keep going as we have been, traveling around with him, preaching and healing, proclaiming freedom and forgiveness, gaining followers. Is this all about more than gaining followers? Is God up to something even bigger? Is that what Jesus means by the seed – “If it dies, it bears much fruit?”

I don’t want him to die! I don’t want him to be hurt. I love that man; I’d give my life for him. I don’t want him to give his life for me… But that’s what he said: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Is he going to be broken open, like a seed? Am I ready to be broken open?

How about us? Are we willing to let some of our dreams and demands die and fall into the earth like seeds, so they might be transformed into fruit-bearing God dreams?
Are we willing to become more fruitful with God?

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

You are welcome to join my congregations for online worship at 7 this evening - here is the link. Our Holy Week line-up of mostly online services is here.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings arehere.  Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.

3-29-21 - Holy Monday: Lazarus of Bethany

You can listen to this reflection here. 

This Holy Week, Water Daily will look at the readings appointed for each day - today that is John 12:1-11 - and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer. 

Lazarus of Bethany: So, they want to kill me – I, who have already tasted death. More than tasted – spent four days in that place where there is no light. Came back to myself in a cold, dark, rancid place; came back to myself at the sound of his voice calling me. Stumbled toward the light beyond the rock they’d just moved to let me out, not sure where I was, or who.

If I hadn’t seen the power and love in this man who became my friend, I might say Jesus was the worst thing that could have happened to my family. His visits caused my sisters to squabble, his friendship drew unwanted attention. But I can say with my whole heart that meeting Jesus was the best thing that ever happened to us. He drew out the gentleness in Martha, who so often uses her intelligence and competence to control events and other people. And I’ve seen our sister Mary show a new boldness and courage since coming to know Jesus.

Like tonight, at dinner at our house – she took a whole jar of nard that must have cost her the earth, and anointed Jesus’ feet with it. Just got on her knees and anointed him and then wiped his feet with her hair. It was extraordinary, and unsettling. Didn’t make his disciples happy – don’t know if it was the extravagance or the intimacy that bothered them most. But Jesus defended her, talking about her having “bought it for the day of my burial.” He knew the end of this life was coming soon; I wonder if he knew how ghastly that end would be? Did he fear it? The suffering? The dying? Did he know what would come next – really know? Or did he have to walk by faith, like all of us?

And now, because so many have come to believe in Jesus because he raised me, they want to kill me. The symbol. The forerunner. You know what? They don’t scare me. Death no longer scares me. Like my sisters, I believe Jesus is who he says he is, the Anointed of God, the Messiah we’ve been awaiting.

And I know that the next time I leave this life, it won’t be to the place of complete darkness. For he will be with me, the Light of the World will illumine even that darkness and make it holy. I just wish he didn’t have to pass through the darkness himself first…

What in Lazarus’ story – or Martha’s, or Mary’s – brings up a story in you? 

A story of new life returning from dead places? A story of hospitality and service? 

A story of extravagant sacrifice to honor Jesus or your faith?
What do you want to offer Jesus today?

You are welcome to join my congregations for online worship at 7 this evening - here is the link. Our Holy Week line-up of mostly online services is here.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here.  Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.

3-26-21 - Already Late

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

What must it have been like for Jesus coming into Jerusalem that day? Knowing this was the last time he would enter this city, where holiness and violence, yearning for God and insistence on human power mingle so potently? “Bittersweet” is too mild to convey the feelings that must have jostled within him. In another passage, we learn that he wept over Jerusalem with its legacy of conflict. Maybe he also wept for his own coming losses.

He did not remain long in the city after his triumphal entry. Mark tells us:

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

What a poignant phrase, “already late.” It was late in the day, yes. Also late in the game for the cheering crowds to come his way; the events that would lead to his suffering and death were already in motion. And while I maintain that the doctrine of free will means that Judas could have refused to betray him, Pilate refuse to condemn him, even his persecutors stop and choose another way to deal with the threat he represented – it was unlikely that this story could turn out another way.

Especially not if we bear in mind that Jesus’ chief adversary was not the people around him, but the personified force of evil choking the life out of this world and its creatures. That fight had to be fought, and this was the way Jesus was going to take on that enemy and his ultimate weapon, death.

So Jesus did not linger in Jerusalem that evening, but returned with his inner circle of disciples to Bethany, the town where Lazarus, Martha and Mary lived. Was that the night Mary anointed his feet with a whole jar of expensive perfume? Was that the night Judas made the decision to betray him? It was one of Jesus’ last nights on earth as a human being, with those whom he had come to love. I hope it was a night among friends, with good food and laughter enough to push the dread and anxiety to the corners of his mind. Time enough to return to Jerusalem in the daylight and engage his final days.

It is “already late” for us as well, as Lent draws to a close and we prepare to enter the drama of Holy Week. Maybe we too should rest in Bethany for a little while – take some time for family and ordinary chores, spend time with friends, prepare for our walk to the cross with Jesus by not thinking too hard. I know that’s what I need this weekend, to recharge my batteries and reconnect with God and myself.

I hope you will do some resting and preparing – and then take seriously the offers of Holy Week to fully experience this story, and your community of faith. (And if you don’t have a faith community, here’s our mostly online line-up at my Christ Churches – we’d love to have you join our worship.)

Yes, you’ve heard this story before, no doubt. Yet it manages to reveal new gifts to us each year. As late as it may be, God’s love is never too late to overwhelm us.

That is my Holy Week prayer for you.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here.  Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.

3-25-21 - Hosanna!

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

If we only heard about the crowd spreading their cloaks and palm branches before Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem, we might wonder why the adulation. But when we bring in the audio, it becomes clearer: Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Jesus was being given a conqueror’s welcome before he’d conquered anything. Those who shouted “Hosannas” must have been convinced that he was more than a brilliant teacher, a holy man, a miracle worker – they proclaimed him the Son of David. Usually in the gospels we see Jesus’ Messianic identity affirmed by those on the margins of society – the diseased, the demonic, the downtrodden. Just before this event, Jesus encountered a blind beggar, Bartimaeus, who shouted, “Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me.” Now, it appears, there has been a tipping point and the general populace has taken up the cry. “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”

Jesus never disclaimed the Davidic title – but he also never talked about the restoration of a royal line or an earthly kingdom. He insisted that God’s coming kingdom was Good News for the poor and the lame, the blind and the deaf, the despairing and the destitute. Yet somehow that wider focus was lost to the crowd dancing alongside him; the “coming kingdom of our ancestor David” suggests a restoration of past glory, victory over the hated Romans, freedom for Israel.

That was something Jesus never promised. He proclaimed freedom for humanity from the greater oppression of sin and death, leading to justice for all. But who wants to worry about sin and death when you’re being oppressed by a cruel and corrupt regime? Can we blame the crowds for writing the script they wanted Jesus to live out, ignoring his own predictions about the script his Father had provided?

Their fervor here helps make sense of the sudden reversal to condemnation a few days later, as they see their hero arrested, held, beaten, mocked – and not lifting a finger to defend himself. Where was all that power which had been on such glorious display for three years? If he wasn't able to save himself, how was he to save them? Was this Jesus another fraud like all the rest, his promises empty, his miracles just con games? If political and military restoration was what they wanted, no wonder they were so bitterly disappointed.

Are there things we’ve wanted from Jesus, from this “Christian thing,” that we have not received? Are we holding back on giving ourselves more fully to relationship with Jesus because we’ve been disappointed? Those are good things to surface and to talk to God about in prayer. How do we feel about the promises we believe God has made? And what promises have we made to God?

Sometimes our “hosannas” are just phrases we mumble by rote. If we can be honest before God about our hopes and disappointments, and ask Jesus to truly reveal himself, there is a much greater chance that our “Hosannas” will be heartfelt and authentic outpourings of praise and love.

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3-24-21 - Cloak Sunday

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

We ought to call it “Leafy Branch Sunday” or “Cloak Sunday,” for there is no mention of palms. And those leafy branches weren’t being waved around – people were placing them on the road before the colt that carried Jesus through the streets. Some even put their cloaks on the colt as well as on the road. So revered was Jesus in this moment, people didn’t even want the hooves of the beast on which he rode to touch the ground:

Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.

In just a few days, we will see this same man whose feet were too holy to touch the ground marched through these streets by force, bloodied and bruised, ground into the mud by the weight of the cross beam he must now carry. How did the people go from excessive reverence to contempt in such a short time?

The human success of Jesus’ earthly ministry reaches its apotheosis in the Palm Sunday story. Maybe the very over-the-top frenzy of adulation directed toward Jesus helped to fuel the degradation he endured later that week. We do like to put people on pedestals, and then watch them topple down.

But Jesus wasn't here for human success. He had his heart and mind set on a victory that would be impossible to explain to those who knew him best. I can only imagine how dislocating this event must have been for him. Indeed, it’s hard to know where to place ourselves in this story, especially in worship on Palm Sunday, when we make this transition from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify him!” in a matter of minutes, not days. Each year, we find ourselves in a different place in the story, and in a different relationship to the man at its center.

I wish I could meet this Jesus for the first time. I wish I could feel the zeal and the love I’ve seen in people who have more recently come to know him. Even in my own prayer life, my experience of Jesus is domesticated and muted. He is too familiar – and not well enough known – to engage my feelings the way I wish.

How might I, we, experience the reverence of those who spread their cloaks on the road? We need to get back in touch with the God-ness of this man who came to make God knowable. It’s a hard balance to find. Jesus didn’t want to be on a pedestal, or on the back of a colt. I believe he wants us to have tea with him in the ordinariness of our lives. And yet, this one who invites us to make ourselves known intimately to him, to speak the desires of our heart and confess our blemishes, is God!

I will begin by adding back some reverence into my spiritual practice – the consecrating of the time, the lighting of the candle, the closing of the IPad, the focus on gratitude. You?

Jesus doesn’t need our hosannas, but I do believe he wants us to be real, "uncloaked." Maybe laying our cloaks on the road before him is a way of letting him know us fully, as we truly are.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here.  Water Daily is now a podcast! Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe.