Faith in Progress

Epiphany 4, Year C Jeremiah 1:4-10 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”   I’ve always loved these words from Jeremiah and the idea of being so completely and utterly known by God, so chosen and called by God. Remember in the first Harry Potter book and movie when clueless Harry is invited to be a student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?  He receives a letter and when his aunt and uncle try to hide it from him, replica invitations start coming in — under the door, through the windows, through cracks in the walls — until they are swirling around Harry like a tornado too insistent and obvious to miss?  That was Harry’s call to something beyond himself; the beginning of a whole new way of life. God’s invitation to Jeremiah is super-clear this morning too.  Words straight from God; Jeremiah is even touched by God.  There is no doubt that God has a plan for Jeremiah, and God is...

Epiphany 1 Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3   My family watched The Force Awakens on the IMAX screen at the Air and Space Museum over Christmas.   ( Don’t worry - no spoilers for the new movie, in case you haven’t seen it yet. )   But before we saw the new one, we prepared the kids by watching the original three movies.   These are of course now numbered 4,5, and 6, just to confuse the older generations. I’d seen the originals only once before, in high school, when my friend Eric was aghast that I had missed that very important part of culture and sat me down to watch all of the movies that then existed in one fell swoop. I’m not sure I thought much about it then, but as I watched the movies again recently, I kept thinking of all the great sermon fodder.  There is so much theology in these movies.  The hero’s journey.  Good and evil, darkness and light.  Fall and redemption.   And there is so much of the Christian story in parti...

Christmas Eve December 24, 2015 All month in Sunday School the Godly Play kids have been talking about how Advent is the time to get ready to enter the mystery of Christmas.  During this season people can be so incredibly busy.  Shopping  and wrapping and cooking and going to parties.  We get so busy that sometimes we miss the mystery of Christmas that is all around us, everywhere we go.  For most of us, kids and adults alike, the last month of December is less an Advent preparation to enter the mystery and more a Countdown to Christmas.  For me it went something like this: * Advent Week 1, or 24 Days Until Christmas.   It was the first Day School Chapel after Thanksgiving break.  I was out in the entryway greeting the kids as they came in like I always do.  That particular morning, the kids were a little more rambunctious than usual.  Maybe they’d eaten too much pumpkin pie, maybe it was the weather, maybe they were just happ...

December 20, 2015 Luke 1:39-55 Over the years stopping by the magnificently lit house on Collingwood Road has become a staple of the season for my family.  We join the line of cars in front of Manor Care and turn our radio to 88.1 as we edge slowly forward to watch the colored lights burst and grow to the beat of the music.  We, and all the others sitting in their cars, are just casual surveyors, not particularly invested.  And then a few minutes later we each drive away and don’t think much more about it.   We don’t consider what goes into the creation of the majestic show - the cost, the effort, the intentions of the owner.  And it doesn’t affect us much once the lights are gone from our rearview mirrors.   Until this week, that is, when I saw on my Facebook feed that something had gone wrong with the owner’s electrical system requiring some expensive part.  The local community was encouraged to step in, to help with small donations that mig...

It is easy to get overwhelmed by the busy-ness of the world during the Advent season.  All around us the world is pushing materialism and the idea that we need more stuff.  But what we really need is so much deeper than that.  Delving deep into Advent will help us to more fully enter into the true mystery of Christmas.  Here are some ideas that might help to make your Advent more meaningful. Create your own Advent chain calendar Instead of toys or chocolate, mark each day of Advent by adding a new link to an Advent chain of your own creation.  Cut 25 strips of purple and pink construction paper.  On each strip, write a prayer, short Advent scripture passage, or an idea for your family to do that day to prepare to enter the mystery of  Christmas .  Ideas might include writing a letter to a friend or family member, bring cookies to a neighbor, or telling everyone in your family why you love them.  Advent Wreath Create or buy an Adv...

Yesterday instead of a sermon I created a series of prayer stations.  We are on the cusp of Advent, the start of the Church year, so it seemed like a great time to take a walk through the seasons of the Church calendar. Advent Advent is a season of waiting and hoping.  At this prayer station, people could create a different kind of Advent calendar.  We each chose 25 strips of purple and pink paper and write a prayer, scripture passage, or idea of something to do on a day of Advent on each strip.  Each day, a link is added to the chain until it is complete for Christmas. Christmas During Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  At this prayer station were gathered multiple nativity creches.  People were invited to read the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew and walk through the story, imagining what it might have been like for its participants.  We had on hand the People of God figures from Godly Play so we could even place ourselves into ...

November 15, 2015 Hebrews 10:11-25 I’ve always had a problem using nice things.  When I was in college my sister sent me a set of paints from Russia, where she was studying.    Having never used tubed paint before, and certainly never with cyrillic lettering on it, the paint seemed too special to use for just my ordinary artistic dabbling.  I wanted to take painting classes to learn how to use them.  25 years later, I finally broke out the paints to use with my daughters.  We had the best afternoon, squeezing the tiny tubes and mixing our own colors and experimenting with different techniques.  It didn’t matter at all that our art wasn’t perfect or technically correct because our experience was full of beauty and joy. I think we often do that same thing with God.  We think we have to be perfectly clean or put together or sin-free before we go to God.  We think the circumstances have to be perfect - our minds calm and our hear...