I spent most of the day yesterday in Rosh Hashanah services. I hadn’t really planned to attend; it just kind of happened.  Sixth and I Synagogue, one of our Penn Quarter neighbors, has a growing congregation of young professionals in the neighborhood.  While their sanctuary is quite lovely, it’s not large enough to accommodate the crowd of 750 they had planned for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services.  Skip to: Sixth and… Read More

Life Together: Believing the Promise Exodus 17:1-7 Over the last few weeks we’ve been reading about the adventures of the Israelites as they left slavery inEgyptand learned what it was going to mean to be Yahweh’s people together.  The passage we read today is one of the events that takes place while the little band of Hebrews is wandering around in the desert.  They wandered, the text says, for forty years.  Forty… Read More

“This was what growing up was about: hide the corpse, don’t bare your heart, do make assumptions about the motives of others.  They’re certainly doing all these things to you.”  p.331, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese I think it might be a little bit like the equator.  We know it’s there—we learned about it in geography class.  But it’s not really there.  By that I mean it isn’t a physical line… Read More

Life Together: Singing Our Song Exodus 15:19-27 I don’t know that one needs to be a trained musician to be a pastor, per se.  After all, one has to have natural talent and put in years of hard work to become a good musician—thus the reason most of us preacher types come to depend very heavily on the talents of people like the incredible church musicians we have here atCalvary.  (Anybody read… Read More

Dear Sallie, I miss you. I know I’m not the only one who misses you; you left a big hole in the lives of a lot of us, and in our church.  While I’ve missed you since you died, I confess I’ve been thinking about you extra these past weeks as the anniversary of your death is approaching. I don’t have to tell you that the rhythm of life and death is… Read More

Life Together: Claiming Our Story Exodus 14:19-31 I was at work that morning. I’d bet almost everybody here has had the same “I remember where I was” thoughts this week, because the 9/11 attacks are one of those experiences about which nobody can help but remember.  And because we remember the day, we each have a story to tell—our own version of 9/11. I was at work, as I mentioned, in the… Read More

My God, Father and Savior, since you have commanded us to work in order to meet our needs, sanctify our labor that it may bring nourishment to our souls as well as to our bodies. Make us constantly aware that our efforts are worthless unless guided by your light and by your hand. Make us faithful to the particular tasks for which you have bestowed upon us the necessary gifts, taking from… Read More