Faith in Progress

December 21, 2014 Advent 4, Year B Luke 1:26-38 In the Godly Play Sunday School room we have an impressive collection of donated Legos that the kids use to work with the stories that we hear in there.   At first I worried the Legos might not belong in the room.   I think in the back of my mind I was worried that they were too human and not properly holy.   And sometimes they do become spaceships for aliens or Jedi Starfighters.   But they also have also become the Temple in Jerusalem and the tomb where Jesus was laid.   I recently found a Lego-compatible Nativity set online, so bought it hoping it could be on the scene for the Advent stories.   Unfortunately, it just arrived, and since the kids have pageant practice today during Sunday school time, they won’t get to create the scene from this morning’s Gospel story where Mary is visited by the angel and is invited to become part of God’s wildest plan yet.             And yet, in a way, I think many of the kids would already

December 7, 2014 Advent 2, Year B Isaiah 40:1-11 The world has felt extraordinarily heavy to me lately. Unarmed African American men being killed by police officers and grand jury decisions tearing communities apart.   Hannah Graham’s disappearance and death.   A deepening realization of the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses.   Mass shootings, suicide bombings, polar ice caps melting faster than we’d feared, draught, famine, and wars raging in more countries than I can name. Probably the news isn’t actually any heavier now than at any other time.   I’ve probably just been paying more attention.   Or maybe having kids makes me worry more about the future.    Or maybe I’m just starting to feel so powerless to affect the pain I read about.    I’m betting that from a God’s-eye view the pain of the world has always been heavy.   Our Old Testament reading today from Isaiah is a perfect example.   It’s set in the last half of the 6 th century BC.   The Israelites ar