Recent Sermons

Have you ever done anything embarrassing out of complete ignorance? This can easily happen when you are visiting another culture. If you do not know the customs of the place, then you can inadvertently do something which can cause your own embarrassment, or worse scandal. After high-school, I visited Madagascar for a few months, and while there I got to go on a back-country trip with the missionary I had been assisting. We went to the south central part of the island, which

+ Travel used to be dangerous. It still is, of course, and it can still be arduous, as many of us who have spent time this summer on the interstate or in the air can confirm. Travel and especially moving is no easy task. But going on a journey is not nearly the same experience as it once was. In the age of discovery in the early modern period, it has been estimated that a quarter of all people who travelled by sea perished. That’s a remarkable statistic. And in the ancient wo

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Recently, I took my boys to see Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing up in Barboursville. It is a play I have seen many times, and still love to see live. To be honest, it is strange play for while it starts clearly as a comedy and ends well, the last third of the play is actually very serious—Shakespeare is very funny until he sudd

Now being made free from sin, and become servants to god, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. One of the main features of Trinitytide, this season dedicated to spiritual growth, is that each year we read through many of Paul's Epistles. We start this season with two Sundays from the Epistles of John and then two from Peter, but the rest of Trinitytide, all the way to Trinity 24, are from Paul's Epistles. This is no surprise--Paul wrote most of the E

O GOD, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire The Collect for this morning is very ancient--the earliest manuscript coming from the 8th century, but sources from the 5th century or before. It speaks of a special gift from God, love, which he pours into our hearts so that we can obtain h

For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken. In the Gospel for this morning, we read the famous and profound narrative of the multiplication of fishes. We pick up the story in Luke 5, which is actually quite early in the Gospel--this is Luke's account of the calling of the Apostles. Already, Jesus is known as a great teacher, as Luke adds: "it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, h