12 PentecostFirst reading and psalm: Exod. 3:1-15 • Ps. 105:1-6, 23-26, 45cAlternate: Jer. 15:15-21 • Ps. 26:1-8 • Rom. 12:9-21 • Matt. 16:21-28In Matthew, Jesus speaks of the spiritual life in terms of profit: what does it profit anyone to gain the whole world and yet lose the soul? While this challenge has certainly inspired philanthropists and almsgivers throughout the … [Read more...] about Counting Profits
Archives for August 2014
Counting Profits
Counting Profits 12 Pentecost, August 31 First reading and psalm: Ex. 3:1-15 • Ps. 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c Alternate: Jer. 15:15-21 • Ps. 26:1-8 • Rom. 12:9-21 • Matt. 16:21-28 In Matthew, Jesus speaks of the spiritual life in terms of profit: what does it profit anyone to gain the whole world and yet lose the soul? While this challenge has certainly inspired … [Read more...] about Counting Profits
Jump Into the Stream
Sic et Non By Andrew Petiprin On a rare Sunday away from my own parish, my family and I ventured out of town to visit another Episcopal church, a much larger one than our own. Unable to arrive early enough for a service intentionally styled for families, we came to a later service and immediately worried that we had entered a no-children zone. Being churchy people, we … [Read more...] about Jump Into the Stream
Homeless No More
Adapted from a Community Solutions announcementAn Episcopal priest has helped to spearhead a successful national campaign to find permanent housing for 100,000 homeless Americans in fewer than four years. The Rev. Linda M. Kaufman, canonically resident in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, directed national field organizing for the 100,000 Homes Campaign, which announced last … [Read more...] about Homeless No More
Suicide and Selfishness
The Rev. Rev. Scott A. Benhase, Bishop of Georgia, reflects on Robin Williams, suicide, and forgiveness:I had a dear friend who committed suicide four years ago. Like Mr. Williams, he was brilliant. His brilliance, however, was in a different vocation. He was a palliative care physician. The irony of his life was that he could relieve everyone’s pain but his own (like Mr. … [Read more...] about Suicide and Selfishness
Love and Faithfulness
Adapted from a Trinity School for Ministry announcementTrinity School for Ministry will host a conference on “Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction” October 10-11.“At this conference we want to explore what a life of love and faithfulness looks like for a Christian who is gay or lesbian,” said Wesley Hill, assistant professor of biblical studies at Trinity and author of … [Read more...] about Love and Faithfulness
VTS Honors Wendell Berry
Adapted from a Virginia Theological Seminary announcementThe Very Rev. Ian S. Markham has given a Dean’s Cross Servant Leadership in Church and Society Award to essayist Wendell Berry.Markham, dean and president of VTS, and the Rev. J. Barney Hawkins IV, vice president for institutional advancement, presented the award while visiting Wendell and Tanya Berry at their farm in … [Read more...] about VTS Honors Wendell Berry
Feast Day: Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of HippoAugust 28Review by the Rev. Alvin C. JohnsonReligious conversion seems so obvious as to need no explanation. Yet the concept often proves to be the most difficult to accept, understand, and integrate, and fertile ground for exploration. That is true for Dong Young Kim’s two-part thesis. As he writes: “religious conversion is usually an evolving process in … [Read more...] about Feast Day: Augustine of Hippo