Katharine Jefferts Schori
Sermon for All Saints at Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, PA
What apparitions came to your doors on Friday night? My husband and I saw some interesting costumes on the street in New York , not children, but young men and women dressed up as rag dolls, elves, storybook characters, a pirate, and some we didn’t recognize. Lots of us have forgotten that those costumed folk are a backhanded way of remembering the saints. All Hallow’s Eve is supposed to anticipate All Saints Day, even though our cultural celebrations of Halloween have tended to focus on the least holy rather than the most holy spirits among us.
Many mission venues
I had just left the subway on my way back to the office in New York when a young man stopped me on the sidewalk. His name is Jesse Zink, and he turned out to be a YASC volunteer, soon to be on his way back to South Africa. YASC, Young Adult Service Corps, sent […]
Sermon at Christ Episcopal Church in Pontre Vedra Beach, Florida
You have probably read about the Lambeth Conference and heard about it from Bishop Howard. Most of the bishops who attended went to England or elsewhere in the British Isles for a few days before Lambeth started. Each one was invited to visit a local diocese, meet the bishop(s) and have an opportunity to learn […]
Presiding Bishop’s Message for All Saints 2008
What saints will you remember this year on their feast? It’s an occasion to remember all the faithful, whether we know their names or not. The Good Shepherd knows them by name, even if we don’t. This year I’d invite you to celebrate the ones whose names you know and the ones whose names you haven’t yet learned.
Sermon at West Missouri's Diocesan Convention
I spent several hours on the way here stuffed in a tiny commercial airplane. The person in the next seat was so big that she didn’t fit into her own seat, but overflowed into mine. Every time she moved, I did too, whether I was ready or not. It was so constricting that I found […]
Closing Eucharist Sermon at All Saints Episcopal Church, Brussels, Belgium
If you remember the readings from last week, after the wandering Hebrews had melted down their earrings to make a golden calf to worship, God was telling Moses that now those people were his problem. God was finished with them, and Moses was going to have to be responsible. But the story ends like this, […]
Sermon for the 125th Anniversary of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Hailey, Idaho
Greetings from Episcopalians in Micronesia, Taiwan, Honduras, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Europe, and the other 99 dioceses in the United States. They pray for you, and I hope you will pray for them. Congratulations as you celebrate 125 years of constancy, endurance, and faithfulness to the gospel in this […]
Consecration of the New Bishop of Idaho
If you look around and talk to people you might get the idea that this is something of a reunion for members of the Canterbury House community at Oregon State University from the 1980s. Brian was a member of that community, Deacon Scott Ellsworth was as well, Fr. Stan Tate was chaplain there for some […]
Sermon at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio
We’re here tonight to talk about pastoring – tending the flock, herding sheep or sometimes, cats. Last week I had the opportunity to reflect at length on the role of the pastor not just in caring for the flock but in caring for the pasture. I’m not going to reproduce that here in depth. Mostly […]
Address at Bexley Hall and Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley, Ohio
Now, I checked this out with a wholly unscientific poll among the younger members of the PB Office staff – and got a 50/50 recognition on the theme from Star Trek, the opening that goes like this: “Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange […]