A sermon from Jefferts Schori in England

Sun, Jul 27, 2008
The Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, is in England for the once-every-ten-years Lambeth Conference. She preached this sermon today at St Martin in the Fields, London.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Good morning. I bring you greetings from Episcopalians in the United States and Taiwan, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Columbia, Venezuela, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, -- both the British and US - and a grouping of churches in Europe.

It has been a joy to be in this country for the last two and a half weeks. Two weeks ago I was in Salisbury, where we were celebrating the 750th anniversary of their new cathedral. Part of that celebration involved a pilgrimage - a couple of miles' walk from the ruins of the old cathedral, which has been excavated only in the last few decades, and we walked down into the town that has grown up around the new one. While I was there, the dean drove us past Stonehenge, where archaeologists continue to discover intriguing things about what life in this land was like three and four millennia ago.

The burials that have been excavated are informative, both because of what scientists can learn from those bones, but even more so because of what is buried with the dead - implements of daily life, jewels, weapons - all that variety of items that are hidden in graves to protect, to ward and guide the dead on their next journey. In spite of looters, the treasures hidden in graves like those are valuable for what they teach us about the living. the rest

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