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

One of my favorite bumper stickers reads, “Where are we going? And why are we in this hand-basket?” We’re bumping along that road paved with good intentions… and we all know where that leads.

 

Why do we have trouble acting on what we know, even when the consequences of not doing so are obvious? If we could figure that out as a human race, we’d make some headway on climate change, famine, obesity, racism, you name it. Neither incentives nor warnings seem to move us much.

Jesus knew that – it’s where he takes his story next. Once the rich man in the flames of hell realizes there’s no way he can get to heaven or benefit from even a drop of heavenly water, he tries to negotiate for his next-of-kin:  “He said, `Then, I beg you to send him to my father’s house – for I have five brothers – that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, `They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, `No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’” 

Oh, is that what it’s going to take? Some people have nearly died themselves, and it hasn’t caused them to become any healthier or less self-oriented.

“Abraham said to him, `If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'” Did Jesus wonder if his mission was futile? But he knew human nature. God gave a litany of laws, a religious rulebook, and yet God’s people rarely remained faithful for long. St. Paul gave himself to living by the Law, and ultimately came to believe that it was not God’s fullest revelation of truth. It was more a tutor or governess until the people of God came to maturity. He proclaimed that Christ was the most complete revelation of God – human, divine, living, crucified, risen.
And so he is. And he is risen from the dead. And he is still saying, “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep.”

Name some areas in which you have been able to adjust your thinking or behavior. What was it that enabled you to make that change, that shift? (I once lost extra weight because I didn’t want to have to buy new clothes in a larger size. Frugality trumped appetite!)

Name some areas in which you feel stuck, ungenerous. Can you say why change is hard in those areas? What are you still getting out of that behavior, or pattern, or response, or relationship? Can you ask Jesus to help you make some space, some movement?

Good intentions are fine, but they don’t get us very far. Our wills lack the power to change our hearts. Heart change is usually a response to being loved. That’s what happened to Paul – he encountered the undeserved love of the Christ he’d been persecuting. That’s what happens to people in addiction recovery – the love they encounter in the rooms creates a space in which new life can be born. Change that seemed impossible becomes real. New life breaks out. 

By ourselves, we can’t do much. With the power of God at work within us? There is nothing we can’t do – including feeding every hungry person on the planet. Really. Dream it, on the road of God-Intentions.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.

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

Many a lyric in a U2 song alludes to a verse of Scripture or a theological idea. Their 2004 song Crumbs From Your Table references the parable we’re exploring this week, especially the second sentence: “And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table…”

Bono has said the song was in part a reaction to his attempts to get American evangelicals to take action on the AIDS crisis in Africa – an effort he likened to “getting blood from a stone.” As dwellers in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, and as representatives of Jesus Christ, our churches might be expected to be at the forefront of efforts to address poverty. Many church budgets, though, allocate less than 1 percent to such efforts. Would a more visible and generous engagement with the poor invite more interest in our churches and our faith? It worked for Jesus… 

As that song’s chorus goes, “You speak of signs and wonders /I need something other / 
I would believe if I was able / But I’m waiting on the crumbs from your table.” (lyrics here)

What about us? Are we cozy with a culture of wealth that leaves many of the world’s poor begging for survival? Some years ago I read this: According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, enough food is produced globally to feed 12 billion people. Global population now stands at 6.3 billion. So why is it that 800 million people suffer from malnutrition and 1.8 billion from obesity, and diabetes and cardiovascular disease are on the rise worldwide?

That’s a lot of “not seeing” the hungry. That’s a lot of hanging on to way more than we need. How long will we tolerate that kind of disparity? We know that some efforts yield results. Way back in the 1990s, the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals made significant progress toward reducing preventable disease and poverty. (Read about it in Bono’s 2010 New York Times  editorial.)

Jesus depicts Lazarus as sick, hungry, homeless, forgotten, having no power whatsoever over his circumstances. People who suffer often need not only our resources – they need us to share power and control, a transfusion of life and hope – and yes, food. The rich man in Jesus’ parable didn’t see the beggar at his gate. Who are we missing?

Here’s a prayer experiment for today: “God, show me someone I’m not seeing.” Hold your imagination open for a few minutes – see what words or images take shape. If you get a response, ask the next question: “What shall I do with that person?” Not “for,” “with.” The Lazaruses of our world are not “beggars.” That’s not their identity. They are people with gifts and hopes and dreams and families and histories – and futures. Sometimes we can help shape what kind.  

A line from Crumbs From Your Table goes, “Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.” As winners in the birth lottery, and beloved of God, how are we being invited to spread the grace around?

© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.

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

I was part of a group that helped start a residential school in Western Kenya called the Nambale Magnet School. Initially designed as a place that would provide home and education for children orphaned by AIDS in a region that provided no services for thousands such children, it also includes fee-paying students who have family support. The need-based calculus for how the indigent, “supported learners” are chosen is heart-breaking. The many candidates for limited places at the school are vetted by the social worker, who visits each village and assesses the needs. Many of the students come from “child-headed” families. If a child has one parent living, shelter at night, and/or gets at least two meals a day, the place will go to someone with even less.*

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores…

We may sometimes feel like that beggar, aware of what we do not have. In terms of global poverty, though, we are the rich man, feasting sumptuously every day. In fact, many feast so much that we cannot consume it all – some 25 percent of food in American households is thrown out, uneaten. (Add in commercial foods, and as a nation the U.S. wastes 40 percent of the food bought, while millions go hungry. And rates of composting are low, so that waste doesn’t even recycle into other food.)

I do not wish us to begin the week feeling sad and ashamed. We can rejoice in our good fortune. I suggest, though, that we acknowledge how wealthy we are and take the time and mindful presence to truly enjoy the feasts we have each day.

We are invited to share out of our abundance, not out of guilt or a teeth-gritted sense of justice. Our tables are a place to begin to cultivate that awareness of abundance that is real for most of us. We might move from giving thanks for each item on our plates and where it came from, to naming other areas of abundance in our lives. Do you have time for a break at work? Can you exercise? Do you have friends? Leisure activities? Memories and dreams? All of these are kinds of abundance to be celebrated.

It’s easy to approach this parable with a sense of guilt. But that often shuts us down and prevents us from opening ourselves to participating in God’s reign of justice. If we can approach it in gratitude for what we have, we just might be able to see how to better share our feasts so that everyone has one. There is enough. As we are released in grace, we release our resources in love.  

*We estimate it costs about $1400 a year to support the indigent students, including tuition, clothes, school and medical supplies and food. If you’d like to join me in providing annually for one such student, please email me or click here.

 

© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.

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

Jesus’ parables are challenging to interpret. They go along a predictable path and then veer wildly off at the end, leaving his listeners – and us – scratching our heads. “What???” The ending to this parable might be the most perplexing of all:  “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” 

What is Jesus saying? The boss, rather than condemning this dishonest manager, praises him. Is Jesus also commending his loose ethics? And what on earth does he mean by: “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Huh?

I believe that Jesus was being sarcastic, telling his followers, “Look, if you’re worried about what’s going to become of you, cozy up to people who can help you… but if you want to follow me to the eternal home I can prepare for you, it’s a different strategy.” 

The ways of God and the ways of the world are different and sometimes incompatible. We hear it in God’s voice in Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the Lord…” (Is 55:8) and in Paul’s writing to the church in Corinth: “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God….”(I Cor 2:12) We see it in the way Jesus instructs his followers to behave in ways that are not “natural” – to turn the other cheek on attackers, to give up one’s possessions if asked, to risk one’s life in service to others. These are not the ways of the world, nor of those who would succeed on the world’s terms.

Those who follow Christ are called to be in the world, to love this life we’ve been given and all its gifts – and to hold it lightly, not to confuse it with the realm of God. We have dual citizenship in both realms, and we need to be clear about which “reality” is the most real.

Who are the “children of light” in your life, for whom you can give thanks today? Do they influence you?
Who are the “children of this age” around you? Do they influence you? How might you gracefully influence them?

Jesus didn’t withdraw from the world or from “worldly” people. He fully engaged them, building relationships in which many found themselves transformed. This is the world for which he lived and died and rose again. This is the world for which we are called to give ourselves, in love. We do that best as we are conscious that we are children of light, transparent, full of integrity and love.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.

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

“I want to talk to you.” Six words guaranteed to strike fear into my heart. I immediately assume I’m in trouble. Dread pervades me as I wrack my brain to think what I’ve done wrong; I can usually think of a few things.

Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’”

Imagine the dread this manager felt when he was called to the boss’ office. No need to wonder what’s wrong – he is told straight out that the jig is up. The only thing left to do is settle accounts as favorably as possible and find the door.

“Give me an accounting.” I preferred the God figure in last week’s parables, who seeks and finds and welcomes and forgives and restores and loves; the God of grace, not the God of justice. But guess what? There’s only one God. The grace and mercy are necessary because the justice is real. And Jesus suggests more than once that we will be called to account for how we’ve managed the gifts and resources God has given us. So shall we take a little inventory today for a mid-life performance review?

Make a list of all the gifts and resources you feel you’ve been given (family, skills, money, networks, location, genes, education, opportunities, relationships… what else?)

Name the areas you feel good about – where you’re using or nurturing what you’ve been given, and it’s healthy.

Are there any areas where you feel you’re squandering the resources entrusted to you – wasting, or not using, or mis-using, or avoiding? It’s worth naming those too.

Invite Jesus to look at your lists with you. How might you relate differently to the less fruitful parts of your life? What obstacles can you identify that keep you from thriving?

Good News: we don’t undergo our performance reviews alone. We have an advocate sitting right with us, the Spirit of truth, to quiet our inner accuser. And our heavenly boss loves us so much, s/he wants to hear from us how we’re doing – and to work with us in the areas where we feel we could do better. Ask the Holy Coach for help.

AND in this organization every employee’s performance is evaluated as part of the performance of the best. And the best One in our company was pretty much perfect. So relax. You’re good. Unlike for the guy in Jesus’ story, for you and me this isn’t gonna hurt. 

© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.