Once upon a time, in a land much like ours, there were some weary travelers who came to a village with nothing but a cooking pot. They found a place to camp near some water, filled up their pot, and put it over a fire. Then they took a large stone and put it in…

[NOTE: In celebration of World Mission Sunday, the following sermon is written as a first-person account by a missionary in Tanzania, Africa.] I am a missionary in Tanzania. When people hear this, they usually have one of three reactions: “You must be a saint”; “I didn’t know the Episcopal Church had missionaries”; or “I’d like…

Today’s readings all speak of mountains – high mountains, holy mountains, as the writers describe them – much like the high and holy mountains that surround the Episcopal congregations in the Ecuadorian Andes in South America. Many of these Ecuadorian congregations are in indigenous communities that lie between 12,000 and 14,000 feet above sea level….

Here’s an experiment: Read the gospel appointed for today to a group of friends, all of whom have jobs, places to live, and automobiles. Then – at least in your imagination – read this gospel to the 800,000 or so people in Haiti who have been living in refugee camps for a year. This message…

Episcopalians get it about glory; that the glory of God is the hidden flesh-and-blood truth about everybody, everywhere. Therefore proclaiming the glory of the incarnation is the business we are in. Which is to say that we – every parish, diocese, province, person – are in the business of healing, and feeding, and serving, and…

And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for…

“In the thick of this thing called life…weighing the loss and counting the cost—together” What in the world can September 11th teach us about companionship in mission? Good question. It is right up there with what use can hardship, suffering, dying and evil be to God’s presence and work in our lives. Reams of paper,…

As the twenty-second Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church stepped to the pulpit at the Seattle Center Arena on the evening of September 17, 1967, most of the 18,000 laity, clergy, and bishops gathered there had little idea what to expect from their new leader, who was about to deliver his first address to a…

At first, the readings of the text for the Transfiguration seem a strange choice for a Sunday in Epiphany. Yet Epiphany means the manifestation or the showing of God. When God is revealed in our lives, it is earth-shattering, paradigm-scattering, transforming. The verb for the Transfiguration is like our, word metamorphose – to be changed….

I love tales of the supernatural. Perhaps it’s because my mother wouldn’t allow me to watch them when I was younger. All it took was the first telltale strains of the theme music from “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” or “The Twilight Zone” to emerge from the TV set, and immediately my head flew up from the…