Katharine Jefferts Schori
On the Mission of the Church
Shortly after I took office, somebody at the Church Center mentioned a wild and crazy idea about sending 50 young adults to prowl around New York City as urban missioners – people who might share their faith and transform the little communities in which they lived and moved and had their being. Sort of like urban Christianity going viral. I actually […]
Sermon for World Refugee Day Chapel Service
When I run early in the morning here in New York, I often go by a fish market. It always smells like the sea, and it dredges up memories of the place I grew up, the place that for me has the deepest resonance of home, even though I haven’t lived there for many years. […]
Sermon at St. Paul, Salem, Oregon
I get to see some remarkable communities of faith in my travels, people of many different languages and tribes, cultures and traditions. A couple of weeks ago I worshiped with a Hmong congregation in Minnesota. They joined the Episcopal Church as a group of about 300 people, because they didn’t think their former church home […]
Presiding Bishop's Pentecost Sermon at All Saints, Mobile, Alabama
Well, I don’t think we’re going to get to sing Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry Bones, O hear the word of the Lord. Though I think we should. Ezekiel was preaching to people lost in isolation and hopelessness, exiled from their native land, sure they would never see home again, and feeling that God […]
Sermon at Christ Church Cathedral in Mobile, Alabama
I watched a powerfully moving video last weekend, made for public television. It was the first installment of a series called We Shall Remain, about interactions between the Native peoples of what we now call the United States and those who initially came here from England and have variously been called invaders, explorers, settlers, or […]
Sermon at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Daphne, AL
“Encourage one another and build each other up.” We’re here because you’ve been building up, and this new building is going to encourage you to keep building each other up, and not just each other, but many, many others. As beautiful as this is, it’s just the shell of what is to come. The foundation […]
Sermon at Christ Church Episcopal, Pensacola, FL
I know that Florida has developed something of a reputation for how elections are conducted. Ballots, whether hand written or electronic, are an honored part of our democratic tradition, though if the truth be known, we have a variety of ways of seeing our elections through. I recall an election in Ely, Nevada several years […]
Communion meeting faced challenges
The Anglican Consultative Council met in Jamaica for two weeks in early May. Most of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces were represented, as well as Cuba and Spain (dioceses not belonging to a province).You will, by now, know of the headline-attracting decisions of this ACC meeting, but you will undoubtedly have heard much less about […]
Ascension Day in the Diocese of Maryland
I can’t think about Ascension without seeing those old stained glass windows and paintings that show Jesus’ bare feet in midair. The story in Acts says that the disciples stood around gazing up into heaven. Did they watch his sandals fall off as he rose above their heads? Did they see the dirt on the […]
Presiding Bishop's Sermon at Holy Apostles Hmong Congregation in Minneapolis, MN
Last weekend I was in Jamaica for a meeting of the Anglican Communion. Each of the members of the Anglican Consultative Council went out to visit a congregation somewhere in Jamaica, and to hear something about their mission challenges and opportunities. I went with a priest from Myanmar to a congregation that has been in […]