Faith in Progress

August 23, 2015 Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18 When I was in college in North Carolina, a friend and I spent my senior year exploring churches.  I think we hit every major denomination and some very off-the-beaten-track spots plus a good number of megachurches.  I’ll never forget the morning we sat near the back of a non-denominational Bible church.  We’d sung to music up on the big screen, listened to a pretty long and fiery sermon that required us to flip through the Bibles provided on the pew backs in front of us, signed our names in the book that was passed down the row, added a few dollars to the velvet bag.  And then came something I was not at all prepared for: the altar call.  The minister talked about how much Jesus loved us and wanted us to let Him into our hearts, talked about the sin that was keeping us from really knowing that love, and invited anyone who felt a stirring in their heart to make the choice for Jesus today and join him in the front.  As a cradle Episcopalian

August 16, 2015 Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Jonathan Daniels  Last month the bishop of our diocese, Shannon Johnston, wrote an email to all the clergy of the Diocese of Virginia asking us to designate today as a commemoration of Jonathan Myrick Daniels.  If you aren’t familiar with him, Jonathan Daniels was a student at the Episcopal seminary at Harvard in 1965 when Martin Luther King, Jr. called for volunteers from the north to come south and join the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.  Jonathan had not previously been engaged in the civil rights movement, but when he heard King’s call, he took it to heart.  He wrote that he was inspired by the prophet Isaiah to respond “Here am I; send me.”  And so he flew south and joined the march.  He returned to seminary, but then realized he wanted to go back to the south and the ongoing fight for equality.  And so he ended up returning to Alabama, living with an African American family that he

August 9, 2015 John 6:35, 41-51 A couple years ago, my family took a trip from Phoenix to Denver.  There were a lot of amazing sights, but also a whole lot of driving.  Before long, my kids were tired of time in the car and tired of being stuck in such close quarters.  By the time we got to the Grand Canyon and parked our car and made our way to a place where we could see the Canyon, my son was incredibly fussy.  It was hot and all he wanted was a pool or a drink of water.  But I knew that would all change as soon as he saw this magnificent sight.  He looked out over the sheer cliff, saw the layers of colors and the magnificent rock formations that stretched as far as the eye can see.  And he said, “That’s it?  This is just a pile of rocks.”      Jesus says that whoever comes to him will never be hungry, and whoever believes in him will never be thirsty.   This isn’t the first time he’s said this, and it won’t be the last.   No one ever knows quite what he means.   Someti