Jac Whatley is a lifelong Baptist from North Carolina now living in Washington, DC. He is progressive in life, faith and career transitions, having been a lawyer, college vice president, church administrator and non-profit director. His wife and two children prevent him from being the hermit his introverted nature demands, and he is sometimes seen in public, usually at church. One of life’s ironies (or perhaps one of God’s little jokes) is that we spend the first half of our... Read more

Jac Whatley is a lifelong Baptist from North Carolina now living in Washington, DC. He is progressive in life, faith and career transitions, having been a lawyer, college vice president, church administrator and non-profit director. His wife and two children prevent him from being the hermit his introverted nature demands, and he is sometimes seen in public, usually at church. One of life’s ironies (or perhaps one of God’s little jokes) is that we spend the first half of our... Read more

You know what they say: if we can’t laugh at ourselves who can we laugh at? Apparently the answer to that question is: earnest and well-intentioned religious people.  At least that’s what everybody seemed to be doing the other night when a friend and I attended the opening of The Book of Mormon at the Kennedy Center. The Book of Mormon is a religious satire musical that debuted on Broadway in 2011.  Since its debut it has received much critical... Read more

Over the past few weeks in worship we’ve been following the gospel lectionary texts and looking at Jesus and his message from the perspectives of those who lived life on the margins of society…left out…in a sermon series called On the Margins.  Every week at the end of worship we’re presented with a discipleship challenge for the week.  One week I invited folks to think about Luke 9:51-62, which is about the cost of following Jesus, and share any thoughts... Read more

We’re getting ready for our two Associate Pastors to be gone at the same time!  Pastor Edgar is going on sabbatical beginning July 15 and Pastor Leah is welcoming a new baby whenever Baby Davis decides to show up (she’s due to arrive July 26th, but Pastor Leah will welcome her arrival ASAP).  That means that BOTH our Associate Pastors will be gone for about the same period of three months. How are we going to survive?  During the children’s... Read more

Over the past few weeks in worship we’ve been following the gospel lectionary texts and looking at Jesus and his message from the perspectives of those who lived life on the margins of society…left out…in a sermon series called On the Margins.  Every week at the end of worship we’re presented with a discipleship challenge for the week.  One week I invited folks to think about a time when they felt they were not included, on the margins themselves, and... Read more

Now we see no great descent or resurrection, no epiphanic flash of glory— but our earth-days lengthen in procession;   figs swell, buckeye bloom, 4th graders clean their desks with Windex, civil servants dream about vacation,   dove & barn-swallow dart and nest. We too plant, harvest, travel, play: The air fills with the smell of roofing tar.   O god of fat & marrow, god of the shadow of wings; god of trumpets, flinty rock,   trombones, oil & honey,... Read more

Power Play: A Calling Luke 9:51-62 As some of you know, I spent a week recently in Collegeville, Minnesota, at St.  John’s University attending a writing workshop.  It was an awesome experience; I feel so lucky I had a chance to go.  There was wonderful weather and an amazing setting, and the whole time I felt, well, strange. Strange, you ask?  Well, for one thing, all my travel expenses were paid in full.  And there were people—like, staff—managing my travel,... Read more

From the Margins: A Sufferer Luke 8:26-39 All week as I’ve been reading this passage I keep thinking about a children’s storybook.  This is not my typical go-to theological reference, as you know. Maybe it’s because we’ve been thinking about the littlest ones among us a lot around here these days as we watch our nursery grow, as we prepared for a weekend of Vacation Bible School out at Camp Fraser (winding up as we speak!), and getting ready for... Read more

  a meditation on Matthew 13:1-9 Listen. Balancing on the deck of a boat, removed because the crowds are too thick, he launches his words to float above the frenzied group. Toward the shore the people gather: a large, anonymous mass straining to hear.  They are blended into comfortable ambiguity, a vaporized distinction of each precious and fragile life. The teeming crowd: a safe place to hide. But even anonymity cannot camouflage each life’s uncounted hopes and unnamed fears, soaking... Read more