Faith in Progress

January 28, 2018 (With screen shots from slideshow)      Our Psalm this morning tells us to:  “Praise the Lord!  I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.”   Today, I want to give thanks, with my whole heart, in the company of this (very upright) congregation.      If you were here just before I left, you might remember that I preached about my hopes and plans for my sabbatical, but that it had just occurred to me that the origin of the word “sabbatical” came from the word “sabbath”.   Sabbath, meaning, most importantly for my purposes, a time of rest.  And true sabbath rest-taking, as I confessed in September, is not really my strong suit.   So when people ask me what I did on my sabbatical, part of me would really love to be able to answer with impressive accomplishments.  Like writing a book, maybe, or walking the Camino, or running a marathon, or ...

September 10, 2017 Romans 13:8-14 I’ve started the count-down to my sabbatical.  Nine days from now  I’ll start with a week at an Ignatian retreat house on the coast of Massachusetts where I’ll be immersed in silence and imaginative prayer and beach walks. I’m super excited, and also very aware of how much I need this time, although I’m going to miss this place, and all of you, a lot.  But as excited as I am, and as much as I know I need this time away, as it gets closer, I’ve discovered that I feel a little sheepish talking about my sabbatical, especially with people outside the church world.  This open time in front of me is such a rare and wonderful thing.  How is it possible that I not only have the best job but also am part of a profession in which sabbatical time is built-in and understood?  So as people ask me what I’ll be doing during my sabbatical, I’ve been feeling this pressure to have something really impressive to announce....

August 20, 2017 Matthew 15: 21-28          I’d originally planned to preach from the Old Testament this morning.   I love all the twists and turns of Joseph’s story.   But after the events in Charlottesville last weekend, after listening to the national conversation brewing around me, I realized that I had to start over and preach about the Gospel. Because right now this story is our story. Jesus and his disciples are on the move, visiting the region of Tyre and Sidon.  These two places have been repeatedly condemned by the prophets of old.  The Israelites were instructed to stay away from this region when they entered the promised land.  And while Jesus and his disciples are there, this Canaanite woman approaches.  The Canaanites were held-up as “enemy” by the Israelites, identified with idolatry and perverted religion.  Additionally, this is a woman, with no clout, status or voice.  So this Canaanite woman f...

July 30, 2017 Matthew 13:31-52 At first, our Gospel reading from Matthew seemed like the perfect reading for me to preach about after two weeks spent several national parks in the wilderness of California.  Especially the growth-from-small-seeds part.   My family spent time among the giant sequoias at Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks and we were shocked to pick up the surprisingly tiny little pine cones that held the seeds to these unbelievably massive trees that my entire family of five’s arms outspread could not reach around!  It seemed impossible that the two could be related.   So I was ready to hang with Matthew and his mustard seed with its explosive growth.  That little pine cone, so precious that signs everywhere told us we must not take them from the park, was firmly in my mind. But then I read more closely.  And got to the part about the weeping and gnashing of teeth and the fiery furnace.  Really, Matthew?!  We ar...

July 2, 2017 Genesis 22:1-14 Isaac Did you know that my name, Isaac, means laughter?  What a joke that is.  I think the last time I really laughed was way back when with my brother Ishmael.  Before my mother sent him away.  But ever since then, any time something starts to bring a smile to my face, that terror comes back to me.  There I am again trudging up the mountain loaded down with wood for the fire.  My father silently walking next to me.  In my dreams I can see myself as I was then, still trusting that my father has my best interests at heart, still believing that I am a child of promise like my parents always tell me.  I try to scream, to shake my boy-self awake, to warn him to turn around, to drop the wood and run away and never look back.  But I can’t make a sound.  And the silence is deafening.  After that time on the mountain I rushed down a different path from my father and never talked to him or my moth...