Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky
There are few men and women in the Church Calendar more unusual than Bishop Schereschewsky. His story serves as a reminder to me of how it is not how we plan our lives that matters, but how we respond to the changes which present us with new opportunities for faithful service.Schereschewsky, born in Lithuania in 1831, was studying to be a rabbi, which would not have been at all a bad thing. However, he became interested in Christianity and began reading a Hebrew translation of the New Testament. He moved to the United States and began studying for ministry in the Presbyterian Church, which would not at all have

Woodpeckers
Yesterday I preached about downy and hairy woodpeckers. Well, not exactly: I preached about God's delighting in diversity, and these two woodpeckers were simply examples of that wonderful diversity. If God delights in diversity - and I'm convinced that God does - should not we - created in God's image and called by Jesus to be his brothers and sisters - delight in diversity as well? We often seem to treat difference as threat, whether ethnic difference or religious difference. There is an Anglican Chapel in ToyTown with a membership that includes a number of our former parishioners. There are real differences between our congregations: they use the 192

It's Not About Us
There have been some protests recently about mandatory flu vaccinations for health care workers. The line that the protesters have taken is that being forced to be vaccinated is a violation of their rights. Now, I'm in favor of protecting people's rights, but the protesters seemed to have missed the point. Vaccination is not about them - it's about the people they serve. I find it hard to believe that there is anyone working in health care who wasn't vaccinated for a wide variety of diseases as a child. I find it hard to believe that there is anyone working in health care who wasn't aware when they began working that t

Stumbling Blocks
We received a gift on September 4 - a granddaughter, Emmaline Abigail Achilles. She is our first grandchild and she has, if I may say, wonderful parents in our daughter Meghan and her husband Daryl.In the Gospel lesson appointed for next Sunday, we find words of warning from Jesus: If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. (Mark 9:42) As a presbyter in the Episcopal Church, I take this warning seriously. My wor

A Food Fight?
A colleague observed that it was odd that in the shortest of the Gospel accounts Mark devotes more than half a chapter to what might be descrived as a food fight. The argument between Jesus and the Pharisees wasn't, of course, only about food, but about washing hands and other matters of religious custom. Mark may have devoted so much attention to this are of conflict because his own community was struggling with the question of whether one had to be kosher in order to be Christian, but I doubt it. What I see at the heart of this story of conflict in Mark 7 is Jesus' hope that people will focus on what really m