St. Paul 's

In the Name... Did anyone get an urgent e-mail, this week, from the widow of an African missionary? Well, she told me that she had ten million dollars of his in a savings account over there and she'd give me a million for the ministry here if I gave her my bank account number so she could transfer the funds out of that country. Ah, the Internet. I think it was supposed to enhance our lives by improving communication and increasing productivity. Alas, the information highwa

Sermon: EPIPHANY 5, February 10th, 2019 In the Name... Who likes a surprise? Are you sure? Depends, doesn’t it? We all love surprises like a winning a prize or hearing that a new child or grandchild is on the way, but, nobody likes to be surprised by a tragedy or a bad test result. Some years ago, I showed up for work on a Monday and went home without a job. Not a good day. But, can you imagine the good surprise which Peter had that day out on the Sea of Galilee? Peter

In the Name... Last week, I made the outrageous claim that the shortest man in the Bible was Knee-high-miah. But, one of you told me I was wrong and pointed out that in the Book of Job, there is a fellow called Bildad the Shoe-height. That aside, we have an unusual occurrence in our Gospel text this morning. The opening line is exactly the same as the closing line from last week's gospel. There isn't another case where this happens in the entire three-year lectionary. So,

In the Name... This morning's Old Testament lesson comes from a book with which most of us probably aren't overly familiar, the Book of Nehemiah. I'll admit it's not full of memorable quotations, but, did you know that Nehemiah was the shortest man in the Bible. Knee-high-miah? No, oh, o.k. Actually, Nehemiah was a Persian Jew who, in 455 B.C., was appointed as governor of Judea by the Persian king. When he arrived in Judea, he found the situation disorganized, to say the

In the Name… A young man had just gotten his driving permit and asked his father, a minister, if they could discuss the use of the car. "I'll make a deal with you.”, his father said, “You get your hair cut and we'll talk about it." The young man waited a moment and replied, "You know Dad, in the Bible, Moses and the prophets had long hair, and even Jesus and the disciples had long hair." "Quite true,” his father replied, “and they walked everywhere they went." This Sunday,

In the Name... Back in the 1970's, Episcopal seminaries started offering something called the Doctor of Ministry. It's sort of a life-experience degree and has proven to be quite popular. The abbreviation for it is D. Min., so, in case you had any doubts, it is true that over 2,000 Episcopal clergy, including 50 bishops, have demons. It seems that whenever Episcopalians run across a Bible text that mentions demons we have a tendency to skip on to the next page. The thing i

In the Name... Teaching about today’s Gospel in his class, a Sunday School teacher had a terrible cold that affected his voice, so, his students thought they heard that Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you vicious old men.” I think we're all familiar with the episode presented in today's Gospel. Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James and John to leave their nets and join him. But, there's another person, mentioned by name in the story, who is not called and who does not fol

In the Name... There was once a preacher planning to go on holiday but, he didn't want the congregation to miss his wonderful sermons. So, he got the idea to record a few so they could be played in church while he was away. Well, he was dissuaded from this brilliant plan by his board of elders when they reminded him that their church did not approve of artificial in-sermon-ation. Well, despite that joke, we did have some lovely and moving services these past couple of weeks

In the Name... A rabbi, a priest, and a minister were discussing career advancement in their respective faiths. The minister said, "All pastors are equal in our system, but, you can get bigger churches or become a regional executive." "Ah,” the priest said, "we can go from priest to bishop to archbishop, cardinal, and finally pope. Nobody can go higher than that." "Well,” the rabbi said, "I don't know. I hear one of our boys did." This Sunday, the Church celebrates the d

In the Name... Some missionary nuns started a medical clinic which would treat any illness and was open to people of all faiths. To advertise this, they put up a sign in the local language. Unfortunately, their translation skills were not as good as their medical care, so, what the locals read was: “We are sick of everything and don’t care about religion.” As we read the Gospels, we see that one of the accusations which the Pharisees and Sadducees levied against Jesus was t

In the Name... There was a man who used to live a life of gambling and drinking and was always at the pawn shop, then, one day he turned his life over to Christ and cleaned up his act. Of course, his old buddies tried to argue with him about his new-found faith. "Surely you can't believe all that religion stuff," they teased. "You can't really believe that Jesus turned water into wine." "Well, you're right, about that," the man replied. "I don't know if he did turn water i

Sermon: EPIPHANY 4, January 29th, 2017 In the Name... In the Monty Python comedy film, "The Life of Brian", there is a scene where the character Brian walks past a crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount and he thinks he hears Jesus say blessed are the cheese makers and that Greeks will inherit the earth. The Beatitudes. These eight simple phrases are well known to most of us, in fact, we can probably quote some or even all of them. But, it's a common misconception to th

Sermon: EPIPHANY 3, January 22d, 2017 In the Name.. A little boy was hearing his Sunday School teacher describe how Jesus approached Peter, Andrew, James and John, with the words “Follow me.” “Wow.”, the boy said. “I didn’t know they had Twitter back then.” Well, this past Friday we had a presidential inauguration and, as we’ve seen over the past few weeks, one of the first things that any new president does at the beginning of an administration is get his cabinet in place

Sermon: EPIPHANY 2, January 15th, 2017 In the Name... There was a man who became obsessed with finding the secret of a happy life. He read many books, and sought out many teachers, but, none of their explanations satisfied him. Finally, he heard of a hermit who lived in a cave high in the mountains and at once the man set out. After many adventures, he finally arrived at the cave where he saw an old man seated in the lotus position and asked him, "Honoured sir, I have been

In the Name... After attending his baby sister's baptism, little Johnny was sniffling and sobbing in the car on the way home. "What's wrong?", asked his mother. Little Johnny replied, "The minister said she was going to be raised in a Christian home. But, I want her to stay with us." We've enjoyed some beautiful services these past couple of weeks, and today we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord by John at the Jordan. John the Baptist. If you thought we left him behind in

In the Name... A fellow is walking down the street in New York City and he notices his watch has stopped. He looks around and sees a shop with all sorts of clocks in the window. So, he goes in and asks about having his watch fixed. "I'm sorry", the shopkeeper says, "I don't repair watches. Actually, I'm a mohel. I do the circumcisions for the synagogues." "Oh. So, what's with the clocks?" the man asks. The shopkeeper replies, "And what would you like me to put in the

From ancient times, mountains have been part of the story of our faith. Mountains are places of encounter with the divine. Moses on Mt. Sinai, Jerusalem, Mt. Zion; Jesus’ preaching on the mountain side. In these high places, the air is clearer, the world is quieter. We are removed from the noisiness and distractions of everyday life; the internet fails and cell phones don’t work. We able to see a horizon far greater than the narrow, restricted views of our lives in the low

Water into wine. One of the most well-known and familiar of stories in the Gospels. But why? Why do we remember this strange and puzzling event? Most of Jesus’ miracles are about healing, conquering demons, and meeting real human needs for health and salvation. But – Jesus making more wine, and LOTs of it, to keep a wedding party going? What sort of a miracle is this? But, as we see Jesus turning water into wine, something resonates in our hearts and souls. What happens

Years ago, when I was rector of the American Church in Florence, Italy, one of the joys for our family in the weeks after Christmas was to visit the presepi in the Florentine churches. A presepio is a crèche – but not just the holy family and a few wise men and shepherds. A presepio is the whole biblical countryside – mountains, rivers, fields, towns, with people carrying out everyday tasks of work and daily routine. There is always a shepherd boy who fell asleep and misse