Faith in Progress

May 3, 2015 John 15:1-8 Ferguson felt far away.  So did Cleveland and Staten Island and Sanford.  But not Baltimore.  Freddie Gray’s death, and all that has come afterward, feels much closer to home.   I was born in Baltimore.  For my first months of life I slept on the dining room table of my parents little one-bedroom apartment downtown.  Then we moved to Columbia, about 20 minutes away, but Baltimore was always the city we claimed, like DC is now for my family.  We went to the Science Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art and Little Italy and walked around the Inner Harbor.  My dad taught at the University of Baltimore.  I even jump-roped in a half-time show or two at Orioles games. My senior prom was at one of the fancy hotels by the water.   But I never experienced Freddie Gray’s Baltimore.  Unlike Freddie Gray, who was poisoned by the lead paint in his rundown home and raised by a drug-addicted mother, I ...

April 19, 2015 Luke 24:36b-48 Are you a witness to the resurrection? I have an admission to make this third Sunday of Easter.  The truth is, there’s a lot I don’t understand about that first Easter.  I don’t understand why God couldn’t find a less violent and wrenching way of getting to Easter than Good Friday.  I don’t understand where Jesus was and what he was up to between Good Friday and Easter.   I don’t understand how it worked that Jesus died, but then suddenly was alive in a new way.  I don’t understand how he ate fish and could be physically touched by the disciples after he died.  I don’t know exactly what Easter means for us.  I’m still working on the theology of it all. And yet, I am a witness to the resurrection. About a year ago, my non-religious stepfather-in-law with no fanfare, and against the wishes of his children, gave a kidney to an acquaintance who was the minister at the church across the street from his house...

Easter 2015 -  Mark  16:1-8 “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Or from another translation: “They got out as fast as they could, beside themselves, their heads swimming. Stunned, they said nothing to anyone.” That is IT, my friends.  That is the true last line of the Gospel of Mark.  No post-resurrection walks or breakfasts with Jesus, no sudden appearances in locked rooms, no heartfelt talks.  Mark leaves us dangling - with the women frozen in shock and fear and silence.  Mark is not about to let us mindlessly read our cheery Easter Gospel and move on to our Easter egg hunts and ham dinners. Unsurprisingly, later readers couldn’t stand Mark’s ending, and so hundreds of years later they added another ending that throws in an assurance that the women actually did spread the news about what they saw, plus a few meetings with the raised Je...

It may sound strange, but for me, the most meaningful Lenten services have become the kids' services at St. Aidan's.  We had a wonderful interactive pre-Holy Week service last night. Our children's Holy Week service walks through the main events of Jesus' last days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. Older kids take roles that help us place ourselves in the scene.  We begin outside and hear a story about Jesus coming into Jerusalem in triumph and one kid finds a "donkey colt" that we follow into the Church while waving palms.  Then we hear about how Jesus and his friends were coming to celebrate Passover and remind them of the story of Moses leading the people of Egypt out of slavery.  When we look for someone carrying a water jug who will lead us to the room where we'll have our Last Supper, a kid dressed the part comes to lead the way.  We sit at beautiful tables to have a kid-friendly meal together (usually mac and cheese, carrots and grapes). Duri...

March 15, 2015 4 Lent (Year B) Numbers 21:4-9 “But the people became impatient on the way.” I love that line from our Old Testament story this morning because it helped me to get past the weirdness of this snake on a stick to see that this story is my story, our story together here at St. Aidan’s, and the Church’s (with a capital C) story. When we meet the grumbling people in the desert this morning, they have had an incredible history with God.  Their stories are so rich that we have been continuing to tell them ever after.  They have forebears that received incredible promises of God.  They would be God’s people, and God would be their God.  When God heard their voices crying out in slavery, God saved them through miraculous plagues, which passed over them and washed over their captors.  God helped them to escape from Pharaoh’s army by parting the sea.  God made food to fall from the sky for them to eat, and water to gush from rocks for th...

February 8, 2015 5 Epiphany Mark 1:29-39 So it turns out that Jesus and I have the same problem with prayer. I’ve been working on creating a more consistent morning practice of spending time with God.  Like many of you, I’m guessing, sometimes I feel stuck in the rut of my daily routine.  Every day making breakfast, overseeing lunch creation and outfit choices, reminding kids to brush teeth and turn in homework, schlepping everyone to school, buckling down to work and in what feels like the blink of an eye leaving work to begin the afternoon routine of picking kids up from school, trying to fit in some fun time with them while doing house chores, overseeing playdates and piano practicing and homework, schlepping to practices and Boy Scouts, cooking dinner, reading nighttime books, getting kids to bed, attending whatever meeting I have that night.  It’s all good and it’s all important, but it just doesn’t leave a lot of space.  So I’ve been hoping that s...

January 18, 2015 (1 Samuel 3:1-10, John 1:43-51) Epiphany 2, Year B Some people might get burning bushes and parting seas and dreams of angel-laden ladders reaching to the sky.  Some people might be hit as if by lightening with remarkable and astounding happenings that are clear signs from God.  Epiphanies that are obvious and indisputable. But I think most of us probably have fig trees.  Or voices that sound a whole lot like those of our friends and mentors.  Most of us are more likely to experience subtle epiphanies that might only make sense to us.  Even those are enough, but they are awfully easy to miss.  For most of us, it’s hard to catch our attention. Like Samuel.   Samuel was in a pre-sleep haze when a voice called his name.   Three times, Samuel assumed the voice was that of the only person he knew to be nearby, his mentor Eli.   He didn’t yet know the Lord, we are told, and it didn’t occur to him that God might be...