Faith in Progress

Easter 2013 Luke 24:1-12               When I was about to graduate from seminary and started looking for a job, I interviewed with a rector who asked me whether I believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.   Whether I believed that Jesus’ actual body came alive again and that same body ascended into heaven a while later.   And this might sound odd coming from a priest, but to tell you the truth, I actually hadn’t thought much about it.   I don’t have any problem with the Easter story of the empty tomb.   I know they are stumbling blocks for many people, but for me Jesus’ miracles in general aren’t hard to believe.   And so I answered something like, “Um…, I guess so,” which I’m sure was not the rousing proclamation of faith the rector was looking for.   I suspect my name was scratched off the list of candidates pretty quickly.   And I crossed that church off my list of possibles too.   Not because I don’t believe in the bodily resurrection, but because I think t

Lent 5, Year C March 17, 2013 John 12:1-8 I’ve been dabbling this Lent.   I got to Ash Wednesday and still didn’t have much of an idea of what I wanted to give up or take on for Lent.   I think this indecision was due partly to a lack of organization, partly to a fear that I wouldn’t be able to live up to whatever I came up with, and partly to a realization that my plans for Lent often don’t end up feeling as meaningful as I’d hoped.   And so for me, this Lent has been an interesting mish-mash inspired by a few things I’ve been reading.   I’ve been keeping up with the Bible Challenge readings and also subscribing to a couple Lenten e-mail series – one from the Episcopal Public Policy Network about violence in society and one from Credo (a group related to the Episcopal Church’s pension fund) about feasting and fasting.   But my favorite one is a short daily video sent each day from the brothers at the Society of St. John the Evangelist about prayer.   Each morning, I lie in bed

March 3, 2013 3 Lent, Year C Luke 13:1-9   I wanted to preach about Moses and the burning bush this morning.   It’s one of my favorite stories.   The willingness of Moses to turn away from his path, the discovery of God who is present in the most unlikely places.   But it seemed that it wasn’t meant to be.   I couldn’t get past my discomfort with the Gospel reading for this morning, so knew that was where I needed to wrestle.               In Luke’s Gospel, we hear Jesus addressing the question of theodicy.   You may not know that word, but if you’ve ever had something awful happen to you or someone you love, you’ve probably been deep in its vortex.   When you wondered how a God who is supposedly good and loving could let something like this happen.   Or when you wondered why a God who is supposedly all-powerful couldn’t stop something like this from happening.     Or when the whole experience drove you to such anger or disappointment in God that you stopped wondering at all.