My dear friends,

When I wrote and recorded my sermon on the fire of Pentecost for our worship service on Tuesday of this past week, the world looked like a very different place than it does today. Had I preached this morning, it would have been a very different kind of sermon. The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis this past Monday has struck a different kind of fire across our nation, and right here in Los Angeles as well. I do not want this moment in our corporate history to pass by unnoticed.

This morning, our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, preached at the Washington National Cathedral in our nation’s capital on this Feast Day of Pentecost. I attach that sermon below, along with a link to a recording of that sermon.

I commend his words to your hearing.

We as a nation, we as a church, and we as individuals bear the responsibility to work toward the kind of community envisioned in the scriptures and embodied by the love of Jesus… a world of justice, a world of reconciliation, a world of shalom. May we be tireless in our efforts toward being the kind of people God calls and invites us to become.

Faithfully,

Bob