Faith in Progress

One of the Day School classes agreed to play the parts for an Advent Pageant at chapel tomorrow. We'll have all the players -- Mary and Joseph, the magi, the shepherds with their sheep, and the angels -- but won't get to Jesus' birth. Everyone will be on their way, still waiting for the moment of birth. It's a funny place to be. Last night the contemplative prayer group at St. Aidan's experimented with some Ignation prayer of the imagination. We read through Luke's nativity story and then inserted ourselves into the story. Someone became a shepherd complete with her border collie in awe of this baby who was so baby-ish (it is so hard to imagine the incarnation, with God becoming one of us, even at our most vulnerable). Someone became Mary feeling scared and alone (we often beatify Mary so quickly and forget how terrifying the birth experience must have been for her, so far from home and loved ones, so young). Someone became a shepherd that didn't neces...

In Day School Chapel this morning, I asked the kids if they could remember what season the church is in now. A few said "Fall", many said "Christmas", but a few helpful souls proudly cried out "Advent!" Next I reminded them that Advent means "coming" and asked who is coming that we are waiting for this season. Thankfully, everyone called out in unison "Jesus!" (No matter how carefully this question is phrased, it is hard to avoid "Santa" as an answer.) I told the story of the angel appearing to Mary and then in a dream to Joseph telling them about this child Mary would bear. Like us in this season, Mary and Joseph had to wait and see what would come. I love their participation in this great plan of God's. The way Mary says, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." And Joseph seems to be a pretty quiet man, but he wakes from his dream and takes Mary as his wife as the...

Preached December 6, 2009 Luke 3:1-6 At the 8:30 service, we only have two readings, so the given lay reader for the week reads either the Old Testament or the Epistle reading, depending on what is being preached. If we’re preaching on the Gospel, the reader can choose which reading he or she would like to do. Invariably the decision boils down to either the length of the readings or the number of names that are hard to pronounce. When I was reading this morning’s Gospel during our staff meeting this week, I started feeling sorry for the poor sucker who would have to end up reading this one. The length is fine, but oh the names! Tiberias, Ituraea, Trachonitis, Lysanias, Abilene, Annas, Caiaphas, and Zechariah. Of course, I soon realized that since it’s the Gospel reading, that poor sucker would be either John or I. I was joking that you could pretty much just skip that whole first sentence where all the hard names show up. After all, what do we care who all the rulers were in a...

Last night we had the first of our Advent series of Monday night prayer gatherings. We always open the Church, and the labyrinth, on Monday nights for contemplative prayer. By candlelight, we'll have a reading, then silence, then some kind of short prayer service. During Advent we thought we'd intentionally make the gatherings more welcoming to newcomers by picking a few types of prayer methods and introducing them before starting in. As it turned out, our group was not flocked with newcomers. But what I'd prepared in anticipation of being an introduction ended up being a much-needed (for me, anyway) refresher. We chose lectio divina and I read from Martin Smith who speaks in such poetic language about how you can find yourself absorbed into the repetition of a phrase from scripture and let it become "like the beating of wings by which a bird rises into the air." My prayer is rarely that graceful and gentle. More often than not, it is dotted with head jerk...