Sunday afternoon the Washington National Cathedral was filled to capacity for the Installation of the 27th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori concluded her nine-year term in the role, and The Most Rev. Michael Curry began his. For those fortunate to have tickets (this Rambler not among them this time – I’ve been to the two previous Presiding Bishop Installations), it was a glorious liturgy with elements similar to our All Saint’s services, including the renewal of baptismal vows and the asperges – the sprinkling of baptismal waters on the faithful.

There is a lot of excitement in the church for Bishop Michael’s ministry. Elected out of North Carolina, Bishop Michael has long been known as one of the most dynamic preachers in the Church. It was his preaching four years ago that helped inspire the General Convention to seek news ways of being, which translated into the structural reform and some of the new initiatives around evangelism that came out of this most recent convention. Some have used the word “revival” to describe what they think and hope the Church will experience under Bishop Michael’s leadership.

If you are not familiar with our new Presiding Bishop, I want to encourage you to do something about that. So, instead of rambling on today, I’m going to direct the time you’d spend reading a longer rambling to listening to Bishop Michael. While my ramblings are quite a

bit shorter than the sermon he preached on Sunday (let the record show I’ve never preached near that long!), it is still worth your time. So, if you have 37 minutes to spare (yes, 37 minutes), you can see Sunday’s sermon from the pulpit of the National Cathedral here. If you find that you don’t have 37 minutes right now, perhaps you can spare four minutes to watch Bishop Michael’s “word to the church,” a video that was published on Monday morning. You can find it here. And if you have eight minutes, you might like to watch this video of Bishop Michael reflecting on the Eucharist, produced last year. He tells the same personal story in this video that he shared in Sunday’s sermon.

And, if you can’t even find the time to watch any videos, I will share with you some of the high spots from his sermon to the church, a sermon interrupted with applause on more than a few occasions. My paraphrase of a 37-minute sermon: “Don’t worry – be happy. God truly loves us. God has not given up on the world, nor should we. God is not finished with the world yet. God is not finished with the Episcopal Church yet. These people who have been turning the world upside down (as recorded in the Book of Acts) and proclaiming another king named Jesus – they are the Jesus movement. We are the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement.”

Please join me in prayers of thanksgiving for our previous Presiding Bishop, Katharine, and for Michael’s ministry just beginning. Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to move through out Church and renew us and our ministry.

Tom+

Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your Son Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.