Whitney Rice
The Rev. Canon Whitney Rice (she/her/hers) is an Episcopal priest who serves as the Canon for Evangelism & Discipleship Development for the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri. She is a graduate of Yale Divinity School, where she won the Yale University Charles S. Mersick Prize for Public Address and Preaching and the Yale University E. William Muehl Award for Excellence in Preaching. She has taught undergraduate courses at the University of Indianapolis and has contributed to Lectionary Homiletics, the Young Clergy Women’s Project journal Fidelia’s Sisters, and other publications. She has served as a researcher and community ministry grant consultant for the Indianapolis Center for Congregations and is currently a member of The Episcopal Church’s Evangelism Council of Advice. A communicator of the gospel at heart, she writes and teaches on a wide variety of topics, including rethinking evangelism, stewardship, leadership, women’s theology of the body, mysticism, and spiritual development. When she’s not thinking about theology, particularly the intersection of evangelism and justice work (which is all the time, seriously), you’ll find her swing dancing. Find more of her work at her website Roof Crashers & Hem Grabbers (www.roofcrashersandhemgrabbers.com).
Sermons and Bible Studies
No One Asks, Lent 5 (A) – 2020
[RCL]: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45 No one asks Lazarus if he wants to be resurrected. That’s the fascinating part about our gospel story today. No one […]
Liberated, Easter 7 (C) – 2019
Today the scriptures teach us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, above all other things, is liberation. We see this dynamic all over our story from Acts. We read that […]
The Rock and the Handmaiden, Good Friday – 2019
All week, we have grappled with our dual nature. It began on Palm Sunday. We started by shouting Hosanna to the Son of David and ended shouting for his crucifixion. […]
Singing the Song of Our Enemy, Ash Wednesday – 2019
The terrible war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended in December 1995. The fighting between Serbs and Croats had set itself up along ethnic and religious lines and so deepened the […]
Christmas Is a Choice, Christmas Day (I) – 2018
Christmas is not an event. Christmas is not a holiday. Christmas is not a church service. Christmas is not a set of familiar carols or decorations of red and green […]
O Come All Ye Faithful, Bored and Irritated, Christmas Day (II) – 2018
Why are we here today? That’s actually a more complex question than we might think. Many of us are here out of habit and/or tradition. We’re here either because we […]
A Week Late to the Resurrection: Wounded, Stubborn, Alive, Easter 2 (B) – 2018
Today, the first Sunday after Easter, is traditionally known as Low Sunday. Low Sunday—that’s a tremendously unflattering nickname for us as the Church. Last week we presented the triumph of […]
Let Go into Jesus, Tuesday in Holy Week – 2017
Being there for one another in times of trouble is harder than it appears on the surface. We often define a friend as someone who will be there for us […]
In the Beginning…, Christmas 1 – 2017
The first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John are certainly well-known—“In the beginning was the Word.” But this passage can seem too floaty, too esoteric, too obscure, abstract, and […]
Do You Feel Burdened?, Proper 26 (A) – 2017
Do you feel burdened? The writers of our epistle and gospel want to know. “You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that […]
All the Faithful Gathered, All Saints’ Day (C) – 2016
We have two ways of thinking about the saints, and it turns out that neither one of them is very helpful. We think of “Saints” with a capital “S”: St. […]
What Seat Do You Choose? Proper 17 (C) – 2016
“People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” So American […]
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