Faith in Progress

Prayer Stations for Ordinary Time May 29, 2016 The Church calendar is strange -- all the big things happen in one half of the year. We begin the Church year with Advent, when we get ready to enter the mystery of Christmas.  Then Christmas, when God came among us as Jesus.  Epiphany, with it's stories of light.  Then before you know it, Lent and time to get ready to enter the mystery of Easter.  We go through Holy Week, living inside the events of Jesus' last week.  Then it's Easter, and we are celebrating his resurrection and hearing about how he was with his disciples in new ways.  We hit Pentecost, with the coming of the Holy Spirit like fire to enliven and empower the disciples and the Church.  Finally Trinity Sunday last weekend, which ties some of these other pieces together.   But now through November we are done.  For the next 20-some weeks, we are in what the Church calls the "season after Pentecost".  Which, to me, does not seem like a very

Trinity Sunday  May 22, 2016 I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Or, wait, I speak to you in the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.  Or how about in the name of God: Rock, Redeemer, and Friend.  Or maybe God: The One to Whom, the One by Whom, and the One in Whom we offer our praise.  Or should we just keep it simple: I speak to you in the name of the Trinity, one God.  Whatever that means.  Amen. If you didn’t see it on the bulletin you’ve probably caught on by now that it’s Trinity Sunday.  The only day on the Christian calendar devoted to a doctrine rather than an event or person.  Today we celebrate that the Christian Godhead is one God in three persons: traditionally termed Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  In other words, 1+1+1=1. This week my clergy friends on Facebook have been bemoaning their sermon-writing.  As one put it: “The Trinity Sunday sermon is like the story of the three bears and you are Goldilocks trying to expl

Pentecost May 15, 2016 When I was in college I spent a long weekend with a group camping by a lake house that somebody’s parents owned.  One night we all lay on their deck on our backs and looked up at the stars.  I even saw my first shooting star that night.   I think the new surroundings, and the darkness, and the infinity of the sky opened us up to speaking about things we might not have ordinarily broached in the midst of the library shelves or the dancing bodies at a frat house.  We wondered together about God and we wondered about how all that we’d learned from our religious backgrounds fit into what we’d discovered about the world since we’d left home.  And one guy admitted that he thought he felt tugs from God, thought God was going to be really important to him at some point, but he had decided not to do anything about it yet because he wasn’t ready to change his life or to start living differently. At the time, that made no sense to me.  I’d been brought up t

May 8, 2016 Ascension Day The Ascension of Jesus into heaven is a tricky story for us modern people.  We imagine, maybe, the medieval religious art that shows Jesus wearing his white robe floating up into the sky above the astonished disciples, emerging above the clouds.   Or, maybe instead, we imagine it more like a scene from Star Trek: “Beam me up, God!”   In the early Church’s world view, this story would have made more sense.  Back when people understand the world to be flat and hadn’t yet explored the heavens with space shuttles and satellites and telescopes.  It’s harder now to take this story seriously.  We’ve been above the clouds - we know what’s up there.  Luckily for the modern Church, the Feast of the Ascension falls 10 days before the Feast of Pentecost, which means it’s always on a weekday and is pretty easy to skip.  We can go straight from Easter and the post-resurrection stories to Pentecost and never have to worry about Jesus floating overhead.  Bu