Jeff is currently serving as the 44th rector of historic All Hallows Parish in Davidsonville, Maryland, a suburb of Annapolis. Prior to this, he served as priest in charge of St. John's in the Village, Baltimore, and as an assistant priest at Saint Paul's K Street in Washington, DC.
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Yeezus of Nazareth
Mockingbird has had an awful lot to say about Kanye West over the years. Nothing lately, however, which is somewhat surprising given just how prolific Kanye has become in the news cycle. The most recent example was his stunning performance of “Ghost Town” at the end of last week’s SNL, coupled with the controversy of wearing […]
A Pirate Looks at Forty-(Nine)
Yes, that’s right, as of today I am officially starting to feel…old. I know there are some readers who will regard forty-nine as young, but please bear with me, because it’s still so new to me. A quick scan of the Internet this morning reveals all that I have to look forward to in the […]
Requiescat in Pace: The Naming Power of HBO’s The Leftovers
Last week, the Earth made a seismic shift, though mostly unnoticed. A gentle giant among us in terms of Anglican church music, John Bradford Bohl, died unexpectedly at the young age of 37. I had the joy of serving with him at Saint Paul’s K Street in Washington, D.C., and when I took over the venerable […]
The Weight of Living, Part 2: God Would Not Save What God Does Not Love
Today in the Liturgical Calendar we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. Jesus and three of his disciples are on a mountaintop, and that’s significant. Think of the times we’re told that Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray. He gives his first sermon on a mountain, the Sermon Mount. Before the Cross, he […]
The Weight of Living, Part 1: God’s Grace for Busy People
The Gospel of Mark can really be summed up in one word: busy. There’s an anxiousness to Mark’s writing that is palpable, a sense of urgency that is ever-present. In fact, it’s not too much to say that Mark’s Gospel is perhaps the busiest of the four Gospels. Throughout it we see a sense of […]
The One Power Source That Never Fails (“Without Your Wound, Where Would Your Power Be?”)
I don’t know about you, but in recent months I’ve been avoiding the news. It’s as if I’m using those skills we develop to screen out the advertising that bombards us in order to screen out the painful news cycles around me, only letting in the ones that seem to be key to my understanding […]
Christian Rejection in the Era of Facebook (From the Retro Perspective of Space: 1999)
For those of us who attend Lectionary-based churches, last week Mark’s Gospel reminded us of the time when Jesus faced a nasty rejection. He was in Nazareth, among his own, but his own received him not. They dismissed him by pointing to his apparently illegitimate birth, saying, “Is this not Mary’s son…?” (subtle but powerful slander […]
Suicide, Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and the Irresistible Father
I know that there’s already been quite a bit said about suicide on this site, but I’d like to add my own two cents, and this from the standpoint of an ordained pastor who is called to step into these situations as a representative of Jesus Christ—to actually try my best not to make the […]
Opening Our Hearts: Daryl Davis and Reconciliation
Last week’s lectionary reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians couldn’t help but remind me of Daryl Davis’ stunning talk at last year’s DC Conference. Davis, who lives right up the road from me in Silver Spring, Maryland, is a gifted rock-and-roll pianist who has played with the likes of Little Richard and Chuck […]
The Beautiful Truth of Collateral Beauty
In the Gospel reading appointed for Good Friday, Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” He seems to really want to know. He seems to be searching for an answer to explain this bruised and beaten Jew standing before him and the chaotic scene outside in his courtyard. And the truth is what we come to church […]
Naming the Impasse: Amos Niven Wilder and the Religious Imagination
Over the past eight years or so, Mockingbird contributors have said quite a lot about the works of Thornton Niven Wilder. His contributions to the idea of a theo-poetic approach to the Gospel, i.e., an approach that avoids didacticism by employing literary archetypes to illustrate gospel themes, are well documented on this site. For a couple […]
Passengers and the One Thing We Can’t Live Without…
This week I finally caught the movie Passengers. I know, I know, the critics panned it, audiences largely hated it, but I loved it! I think the interpretive problem for most viewers was a matter of viewpoint. If one views Passengers from the standpoint of sci-fi or romance, I agree that it falls short, but that’s not the […]
