With the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, I offer heartfelt prayers for His Holiness Pope Francis and all members of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world. As followers of Jesus, we know that death does not have the final word. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, the Apostle Paul reminded that first generation of Christians that they need not grieve as those who have no hope.
The former pontiff, a renowned theologian, echoed Paul when he said that “one who has hope lives differently.” Benedict’s passing occurs at the end of a year that for so many continued to be fraught with great difficulties and uncertainties—both personal and global. Amid such struggles, may we indeed live differently, with hope, and follow the Way of Love.
And may Benedict, and all who have died, rest in peace.
The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry Presiding Bishop and Primate The Episcopal Church
December 31, 2022
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream. ―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us.
We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
The following is a transcript of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s recorded Christmas message for 2022.
Hello. I’m inside St. James Church by-the-Sea, La Jolla, California. We thank the rector, the clergy, the staff, and the good people of this church for allowing us to bring this Christmas message to The Episcopal Church from this wonderful and beautiful congregation.
The older I get, the more I am convinced that God came into this world in the person of Jesus for one reason, and one reason alone: to show us the way to be reconciled and in right relationship with the God who is the creator of us all, and with each other as children of that one God who is the creator of us all, and of all things.
Jesus came to show us how to live, reconciled with God, and with each other, and He taught us that the way to do it is God’s way of love. For God’s way of love is God’s way of life. It’s our hope for our families, our communities, our societies. Indeed, it is our hope for the whole world. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and love came down at Christmas.
Now, look, I’m 69 years old. I’ve been around the block a little bit. I know that sounds nice, sounds like the kind of thing we say in church. It sounds nice, but naive, idealistic but unrealistic, and yet, consider the alternative. Need I just simply say the names? Uvalde, Vestavia Hills, Tree of Life Synagogue, Club Q in Colorado Springs, Ukraine.
Now, God’s way of love is not naive, it is not unrealistic, it’s the way. It’s the way to life for us all. Dr. King once said, “Darkness cannot cast out darkness; only light can do that. And hatred cannot cast out hatred; only love can do that.” Love came down at Christmas. And as some of us are beginning to say in this Episcopal church of ours, “Love always.”
Earlier this year, I went to Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston to be part of the seventh commemoration of the murders of the martyrs of Charleston. You may remember that a number of years ago, while members of that church had gathered for Bible study, a man came in and they welcomed him in, and invited him to join them, and he turned on them, and he killed many.
It was the seventh commemoration to both honor and remember those who had died, to give God thanks for those who helped—first responders, medical persons—but it was also something else. It was a time to commit ourselves, not simply to throw up our hands in despair, but to reach out our hands to each other, to roll up our sleeves, to take God’s hand and take each other’s hand and do the hard and holy work of love, which brings healing, which brings hope, which binds us together, and lifts us up to be all that God dreams and intends for us all to be.
Love came down at Christmas. Love always, because love is the way. It is the way that Jesus taught us based on the ancient teachings of Moses, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” for on these two hang, depend, all the law, all the prophets, everything that God intends because God is love.
Love came down at Christmas and so let this Christmas be a moment of rededication to the work of love in the world. As Howard Thurman wrote long ago, “When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star and the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are at home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, then the work of Christmas begins. To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among others, to make music in the heart.”
For love came down at Christmas, and our work is to love always. God love you. God bless you, and may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love. Merry Christmas.
The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry Presiding Bishop and Primate The Episcopal Church
“Love came down at Christmas” is Hymn 84 in the Hymnal 1982 of the Episcopal Church. Jars of Clay mostly used the same hymn tune used in the Hymnal 1982.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream. ―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us.
We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
[Episcopal News Service] When Presiding Bishop Michael Curry began leading a series of Episcopal revivals in 2017, even the term raised eyebrows. Would this “revival” evoke a harmful form of Christian evangelism, one that some Episcopalians saw as antithetical to the church’s current approach to mission and ministry?
Curry, then in his second year as presiding bishop, won over skeptics by touting his first revivals as part of the church’s “loving, liberating and life-giving” approach to being “the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement.” Since then, revivals have become a familiar part of the church’s lexicon and schedule. Now, after a pandemic lull, the large in-person gatherings are returning to the church calendar, starting with activities this week in San Diego, California, that will culminate in a daylong event December 10, 2022.
Revival schedule for the near future
The Good News Festival, as the San Diego revival is billed, will be held at the Town and Country Resort. Its evening worship service will feature preaching by Curry and the Rev. William Barber II, a Disciples of Christ pastor who serves as co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, to which The Episcopal Church is a partner. Curry also is scheduled to preach at Holy Eucharist on December 11 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral.
“We really wanted to make it a way for us to showcase what The Episcopal Church is to the wider community,” San Diego Bishop Susan Snook said in an interview with Episcopal News Service. “We call it the Good News Festival because we believe we have good news to share.”
Additional revivals are planned in 2023 in the dioceses of Massachusetts, Southern Virginia, Missouri, East Carolina and Central New York, as well as a revival-inspired event to be held in March at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity in Paris by the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. Curry’s staff also is finalizing the details of churchwide revival in July 2023 in Baltimore, Maryland, under the banner “It’s All About Love: A Festival for the Jesus Movement.”
“What we have got to keep in mind is that revivals, throughout history and right now, are not just events – they are movements,” Curry said in a written statement to ENS. “My deep prayer is that we come to see ourselves not simply as The Episcopal Church, but as the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement: a community for whom Jesus Christ and his way of love is our way of life, and the heart of our witness in the world. A revival movement is about this becoming ever more true and real for us.”
Engage in prayer, discernment, evangelism, and relationship-building
Along with the revivals, Curry’s staff is encouraging all Episcopal dioceses, congregations, schools, institutions, ministries and individuals to engage more deeply in prayer, discernment, evangelism and relationship-building. The church’s Office of Evangelism is promoting a growing list of resources inspired by Curry’s emphasis in recent years on the Way of Love framework for Christian formation and discipleship.
“What we have got to keep in mind is that revivals, throughout history and right now, are not just events – they are movements.”
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
“The Episcopal revival movement is back in full swing,” Jerusalem Greer, the church’s manager of evangelism and discipleship, told ENS. In resuming the large in-person gatherings, she added, Episcopal leaders are “being very responsive to where the church is now and where people are now” nearly three years into the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Each revival location is discerning how to both revive their own [Episcopal] community as well as invite the larger community into that, into being revived,” Greer said. “Because as a culture, we are just so depleted from the pandemic and because of the divisions that our country has experienced.”
Good News Festival
In San Diego, the Good News Festival will cap a “year of evangelism” for the diocese. Throughout 2022, Snook said she structured her parish visits like mini revivals, with prayer stations, personal blessings and one or two lay members offering faith testimonies. The diocese also hosted evangelism workshops and trainings for community engagement to encourage Episcopalians to get to know their neighborhoods and partner with their neighbors.
In a similar vein, a spiritual “marketplace” at the Good News Festival will be open from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Pacific on December 10, featuring workshops on various topics, including creation care initiatives, Indigenous land acknowledgements and LGBTQ+ rights. Attendees will be invited to visit vendor booths and listen to diverse lineup of musicians.
The revival’s worship service will start at 6:30 p.m. and will feature the Voices of our City Choir, a nationally known group of performers who are homeless or formerly homeless. In between Barber’s and Curry’s sermons, Snook will lead a brief time of collective prayers, such as for victims of gun violence and for immigrants and refugees. Revival attendees also will be encouraged to visit individual prayer stations, where clergy and lay leaders will pray for them.
The diocese is marketing the revival widely, particularly on social media, Snook said, and it will ask attendees to volunteer their contact information, so congregations can follow up and invite them to future worship services.
“Our hope is that this will be a way for the wider San Diego community to come to understand what The Episcopal Church is all about,” Snook said. “We do want to partner with our community, we do want to transform this world to be a better place and we want our congregations to be able connect with those people and continue that kind of invitation.”
“The service itself is not the total experience. The revival movement within a diocese includes everything you do before and after.”
Jerusalem Greer, the Episcopal church’s manager of evangelism and discipleship
Snook and other church leaders are counting on a big turnout. Before the March 2020 start of the pandemic, the initial series of churchwide revivals drew large crowds in their host dioceses.
Revival response before the pandemic
“Episcopal Church, we need you to follow Jesus. We need you to be the countercultural people of God who would love one another, who would care when others could care less, who would give, not take,” Curry said in one of his Pittsburgh sermons.
After that weekend, Curry and his staff helped stage other revivals over the following year in the dioceses of West Missouri, Georgia, San Joaquin (California) and Honduras. Another revival was held in partnership with the Church of England.
One of the biggest Episcopal revivals was held in Austin, Texas, during the 79th General Convention in July 2018. Curry preached for about 45 minutes at the event, which drew an estimated 2,500 people in person and more than 26,000 additional viewers online.
The single word “Revival” was displayed on giant screens to the left and right of the stage. A praise band sang from the stage as the crowd cheered its approval. “The work of love is to work to make a world with the possibility of life for all,” Curry said at one point in his sermon.
Spiritual renewal and transformation
That and the church’s other revivals have featured inspiring worship, compelling teaching, honest faith-sharing, intensified prayer and some form of engagement with the mission of God – all for the sake of the spiritual renewal and transformation of people and of society. Overall, Curry’s staff has helped facilitate more than a dozen such Episcopal revival events.
Now, with the revivals set to resume with San Diego’s Good News Festival, Snook said her diocese plans to use its event to launch 2023 as a “year of service,” to coincide with the diocese’s 50th anniversary.
Greer, the church’s evangelism manager, said following up a after successful revival with a plan for further action is just as important as hosting the event.
“The service itself is not the total experience,” Greer said. “The revival movement within a diocese includes everything you do before and after.”
—David Paulsen is an editor and reporter for Episcopal News Service. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
And now in the name of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
We have assembled in this sacred place to give God thanks for the life of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to give God thanks for a life that was given to service of others, to cause greater than self. We give God thanks that one such as her did walk among us. So allow me, if you will, to offer a passage of Scripture that I hope does honor to not only her memory, but her legacy that we must live. It comes from the 10th chapter of Luke’s Gospel.
“A lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Great teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read?’ And the lawyer answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Jesus then said to him, ‘You have answered rightly. Do that. Love God and your neighbor, and why you’re at it, yourself, and you will find life.’” Life as God intended. Life that lifts humanity up to the highest possibility of our nobility. Do that. Love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself, and you will fulfill God’s dream for all of God’s children.
Now Jesus didn’t say all of that. I added a little bit, but that’s what he meant. I was probably, I’m guessing, 12 or 13 years old when I had a conversation with my father, or better yet, it was a monologue. He spoke, I listened. He wanted me to do something, and I don’t remember what it was. I’m 69 years old now, so it was a long time ago, but he wanted me to do something, and I have to tell you, I didn’t want to do whatever it was. But of course, I didn’t say anything to him, but somehow my facial expression betrayed my innermost thoughts. And he read my mind, and he blurted out as parents often do with pre-adolescent children, “You know, the Lord didn’t put you here just to consume the oxygen.”
Now I don’t think that was a philosophical, theological thought. I think it was purely a parental response. And I have two grown daughters so I know how parents do that. But the truth is there was wisdom in that statement. The Lord didn’t put me here, didn’t put you here, didn’t give any of us the breath of life, however long or short it will be, just to consume the oxygen.
Now there are students here who have clearly studied the life sciences and know about the process of photosynthesis. Am I right about that? You can’t see them, but they’re nodding. They know about photosynthesis—that process built into God’s biological creation whereby mammals, animals, exhale, if you will, carbon dioxide and inhale oxygen. The plants and vegetation take in the carbon dioxide that we have exhaled—unless we are waiting to exhale, as Toni Morrison taught us. They take in that carbon dioxide and they release the oxygen. Does anyone think that’s an accident?
It’s this symbiotic relationship. This relationship between animals and plants, between human beings and the rest of the creation is how God made the world and intends for it to function. We are here not just to consume the oxygen. We are here partially to consume it. We have a biological and ecological purpose, but we are not here just to consume, just to acquire, just to get. We are here to consume the oxygen and then to give carbon dioxide in plants and trees and those wonderful British gardens that I have seen all over the world. Our plants and vegetations give thanks that we are here, and we must give thanks that they are.
No, we are not just here to consume. We’re here to give. We’re here to give back to this world, give back to each other, give back to the God who made us. And the Bible tells us, though, in the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, Moses said it this way, “Man does not live by bread alone.” Of course you need bread, but you do not live by bread alone, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The prophet Micah said it this way, “What does the Lord require of you?” Every human being. Micah said it this way, “The Lord requires of you to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” And Jesus of Nazareth said it this way, quoting Isaiah who’s the first lesson that we heard a few moments ago when he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty all those who are oppressed by anything, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, the great religions of the world. The Dalai Lama would tell you this. The Lord didn’t put us here just to consume the oxygen. He put us here to live and to give and to serve, and as Ignatius Loyola said, and not count the cost. Are y’all with me so far? Can I get an amen out of y’all? Could you say amen? Yeah, we are here today to give God thanks for someone who did more than consume the oxygen. That’s why we’re here. You can clap for her. Go ahead. It’s all right. It’s all right. I know we’re in the National Cathedral, and we have to be on our best behavior, but it’s all right. Clap inwardly. Oh, it’s all right. Yes. Yes.
Her Majesty in 1953, the year I was born, vowed that she would dedicate her life to the service of her people, and indeed, of humanity. And you know what? She kept her word. She kept her word. We are here to give God thanks that it is possible to serve and to keep your word. As the Archbishop of Canterbury said at the abbey the other day, “She served out of her religious faith. She served and dedicated her life to God and God’s service, seeking to follow in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth and His way of love as her way of life.”
Listen to what she said. This is Christmas 2014. “For me, for me, the life of Christ, the Prince of Peace, whose birth we celebrate today, is an inspiration and anchor to my life, a model of reconciliation, of forgiveness. He stretched out His hands in love, acceptance, and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek, to respect and value all people of whatever faith or none.”
A lawyer came to Jesus. I know there are lawyers in this room. A lawyer came to Jesus, as lawyers often did if you read the New Testament. And he came to him and he said, “Jesus, what is the secret to eternal life?” Which was a way of saying, what is the key to a life that matters now, and that as it matters now temporally will last unto eternity? And Jesus said, well, look, brother, you the lawyer. What does it say in the law of Moses? What did Moses say? And the Lord replied in Deuteronomy, Moses said the Shema, “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And in Leviticus, he wrote, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus said, you have just passed the heavenly bar exam. Do that. Love God and your neighbor, and you have found the key to life. Live and serve God. Live and serve your neighbor. Serve each other, and you have found the key to life that not even death can take away from you.
But this was a lawyer Jesus was talking to. Now I’m going to sit down in a minute; don’t worry. This is a lawyer Jesus was talking. And he said, this is good, Jesus, but you are a preacher and I’m a lawyer and we work with words. So can we define neighbor? Can we narrowly define neighbor? And Jesus didn’t play the game. He told a story and you know it as a parable of the Good Samaritan. It was a story of one person who helped another person who was of a different religion, who was of a different nation, who was of a different ideology, who was a different political party, who was a… Oh, I’m getting in trouble now. Who was from a different country, a different person. Jesus told the story of somebody who helped somebody else, over-transcending their differences and helped them just because they’re a human child of God. And therefore, my brother, my sister, my sibling. And He said, do that and you’ll be the neighbor, you’ll be the human that God intended.
God put you here to do more than consume the oxygen. But let me bring this to a conclusion. I was in the airport yesterday on my way here. And I was in line, and I had the collar on, and a man came up to me and he said, “How are you, bishop?” And he asked me, “Where are you going?” And so I told him, and he said, “That’s nice. She was a lovely lady.” And then I asked him, “So where are you going?” And he said, “My wife and I are on our way to Ukraine.” And I said, “What are you going to do?” He said, “We’re part of a medical team. My wife is from Ukraine and we’ve gone several times. But my faith teaches me I’ve got to do everything I can to help.”
I never asked him what faith he was. Never asked him what ethnicity he was. I never asked him was he gay or straight? I didn’t ask him any of the questions. I just simply opened my wallet and gave him the money I had in it. And those of you who know Episcopalians, you know that was a move. And then I thanked him, and he went on his way, and I went on mine. That’s why the Lord put us here, to honor God by caring for each other, loving and serving each other.
At the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King, the great Mahalia Jackson stood up and sang one of Dr. King’s favorite songs that epitomized why he sacrificed his life. It said very simply:
If I can help somebody along the way, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody they’re traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.
If I can do my duty as a good person ought, if I can bring back beauty to a world of rot, if I can spread love’s message as the Master taught, then my living will not be in vain. Then my living will not be in vain.
Dear friends, the God who loves Her Majesty and receives her into the arms of that love created each one of us out of that fountain of love. And we are at our best when we live in that love. God love you. God bless you. And may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love. Amen.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.
―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Today we mourn the passing and celebrate the life and legacy of Queen Elizabeth II. My prayers for peace go out for her, for her loved ones, and for all those who knew and loved her throughout the world.
Her resilience, her dignity, and her model of quiet faith and piety have been—and will continue to be—an example for so many.
May she rest in peace and rise in glory.
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry Presiding Bishop and Primate The Episcopal Church
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.
―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
While this situation is rapidly changing, I want to assure all Episcopalians that the House of Bishops will be meeting Wednesday in Canterbury to discern its way forward before the Lambeth Conference begins.
For now, I offer this message of love to all my LGBTQ+ siblings: We have worked hard to become a church where, as the old African slaves used to sing, “There is plenty good room, plenty good room,” for all of God’s children. We are all The Episcopal Church, and we will not compromise who we are, our connections, or our love. We head to this conference with you in our hearts and Jesus’ Way of Love as our guide.
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.
―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Today the Supreme Court released its decision in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The court has overturned the constitutional right to abortion that was recognized in the seminal 1973 case Roe v. Wade.
While I, like many, anticipated this decision, I am deeply grieved by it. I have been ordained more than 40 years, and I have served as a pastor in poor communities; I have witnessed firsthand the negative impact this decision will have.
We as a church have tried carefully to be responsive both to the moral value of women having the right to determine their healthcare choices as well as the moral value of all life. Today’s decision institutionalizes inequality because women with access to resources will be able to exercise their moral judgment in ways that women without the same resources will not.
This is a pivotal day for our nation, and I acknowledge the pain, fear, and hurt that so many feel right now. As a church, we stand with those who will feel the effects of this decision—and in the weeks, months, and years to come.
The Episcopal Church maintains that access to equitable health care, including reproductive health care and reproductive procedures, is “an integral part of a woman’s struggle to assert her dignity and worth as a human being” (2018-D032). The church holds that “reproductive health procedures should be treated as all other medical procedures, and not singled out or omitted by or because of gender” (2018-D032). The Episcopal Church sustains its “unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions [about the termination of pregnancy] and to act upon them” (2018-D032). As stated in the 1994 Act of Convention, the church also opposes any “executive or judicial action to abridge the right of a woman to reach an informed decision…or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting on her decision” (1994-A054).
The court’s decision eliminates federal protections for abortion and leaves the regulation of abortion to the states. The impact will be particularly acute for those who are impoverished or lack consistent access to health care services. As Episcopalians, we pray for those who may be harmed by this decision, especially for women and other people who need these reproductive services. We pray for the poor and vulnerable who may not have other options for access. We urge you to make your voice heard in the way you feel called but always to do so peacefully and with respect and love of neighbor.
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.
―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
[Office of Public Affairs] Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry will offer closing comments and a benediction at the Inaugural National Bible Study that will be livestreamed at 7 p.m. ET on June 17, 2022, at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. This marks the seventh anniversary of the shooting deaths of nine Black church members attending Bible study.
U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., will also participate in the program, which will feature a panel of biblical scholars and church leaders discussing “The Parable of the Soils” in Mark 4:1-9—the same text church members were studying the night they were killed by a white supremacist.
“Remembering the Emanuel Nine in Charleston is also a call to action, calling people of faith, as the parable of the soils suggests, not to get weary but to keep sowing seeds for change,” said the Rev. Margaret Rose, deputy for ecumenical and interreligious relations for The Episcopal Church.
After last month’s racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 people, Curry issued a pastoral statement, noting, “The loss of any human life is tragic, but there was deep racial hatred driving this shooting, and we have got to turn from the deadly path our nation has walked for much too long.”
The commemorative service will kick off a nationally coordinated weekend of Bible study, prayer, and preaching that will conclude on June 19 in celebration of Juneteenth, the U.S. holiday marking the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.
―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
“Easter is the celebration of the victory of God,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop and Primate Michael B. Curry said in his Easter 2022 message. “The earth, like an egg, has been cracked open, and Jesus has been raised alive and new, and love is victorious.”
The festive day of Easter is Sunday, April 17, 2022.
The Easter message of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
In Matthew’s gospel, the resurrection of Jesus is introduced this way: “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord had descended from heaven, came and rolled back the stone before the tomb until it was open.”
A number of years ago, when I was serving as the bishop of North Carolina, one of our clergy, the Rev. James Melnick, offered a workshop on the Saturday before Palm Sunday on how to design, and color, and make Easter eggs.
I attended the workshop with a number of other people from around the Raleigh area and did my best to make an Easter egg. But Jim was a master at doing so. You see, Jim’s family hailed from Ukraine, and he had been making those Easter eggs from childhood, and spoke of his grandmother and the family tradition that hailed from Ukraine, the making of those Easter eggs. I knew the significance of the Easter egg and Easter. I knew the stories and the truth and the teachings about the coming of new life into the world, and the connection of life emerging from an egg, and Jesus rising from the dead, bringing new life and hope into our world.
But it became clear to me, in the last month or so, in this time when the people of the Ukraine are struggling for their freedom, struggling to be what God intends for all people to be, free people, that, that egg, which is deeply embedded in the life and the consciousness of the people of Ukraine, that those Easter eggs are not just mere symbols, but reminders of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus. Think back. On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem, as we know, riding on a donkey. That was a deliberate act on his part.
He entered Jerusalem at about same time that Pontius Pilate, the governor of Rome, would’ve been entering the city from the other side, from the other gate. Pilate would’ve been riding a war horse, accompanied by a cavalry and infantry. He would’ve been riding in the streets of Jerusalem at this, the dawn of the Passover, which was a celebration of Jewish freedom. Harking back to the days of Moses and the Exodus, Pilate knew that the people would remember that God decreed freedom for all people, and that the Roman empire, which held Judea as a colony, would need to put down, by brute force, any attempt to strike a blow for their freedom.
So, Pilate entered Jerusalem on a war horse, and Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. The way of humility, the way of the love that we know from the God who is love, the way of truth, the way of compassion, the way of justice, the way of God, the way of love. That way faced the way of the world, brute force, totalitarian power, injustice, bigotry, violence, embodied in Pontius Pilate, governor of Rome. And the rest of the week was a conflict between the way of the empire and the way of the kingdom or the reign of God’s love.
On Friday, the empire struck. Jesus was executed on the orders of the governor of Rome. He was killed, and hope seemed to die with him. His followers fled, save those few women who stood by the cross, and save old Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who provided a tomb for the body of Jesus. The Scripture says they placed his body in the tomb and rolled the stone in front of the tomb. And there he lay dead, lifeless. There their hopes dashed on the altars of reality, their truth was crushed to earth. Their love itself seemed to die.
Then early Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene, and at least one other, and maybe a few other women, went to the tomb to anoint his body, to do the rites of burial that were customary. But when they got there, they realized that there had been an earthquake, that the earth, if you will, had been cracked open, and that the tomb was empty. The tomb was open and empty. The earth had been cracked open, and they would soon discover that Jesus had been raised from the dead. The earth cracking open, the tomb opening like an egg cracked open, and new life emerging from it.
That is the victory of life. That is the victory of love. That is the victory of God. The resurrection of Jesus is the victory that we can believe in and live by.
Many years before South Africa ever saw its new day of freedom, I heard Desmond Tutu in Columbus, Ohio. This was in the mid-1980s. This was while Nelson Mandela was still in prison, while there was no hope of deliverance. I heard him say in his speech that I believe that one day my beloved South Africa will be free for all of her children, Black, white, colored, Asian, Indian, all of her children.
I believe it, because I believe that God has a dream for South Africa, and nothing can stop God’s dream. And I believe that because I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, and nothing can stop God. Easter is the celebration of the victory of God. The earth, like an egg, has been cracked open, and Jesus has been raised alive and new, and love is victorious.
In the year 2020, in that first Easter during the pandemic, when our church buildings were closed, we broadcast an Easter service from the National Cathedral, and members of our communication team organized for, what may have been the first time in our church’s history, organized an online choir.
And they sang an ancient Easter hymn. And they will sing it for you now. It sings of this victory, this victory of love of God. The strife is o’er, the battle done. The victory of life is won. The sound of triumph has begun. Alleluia, alleluia. The victory is won. Our task is to live in that victory, to live out that love until the prayer that Jesus taught us, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so this Easter, behold, the Ukrainian Easter egg, for the victory of love and life is one.
(Virtual choir sings)
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
The strife is o’er, the battle done, the victory of life is won; the song of triumph has begun. Alleluia!
The powers of death have done their worst, but Christ their legions has dispersed: let shout of holy joy outburst. Alleluia!
The three sad days are quickly sped, he rises glorious from the dead: all glory to our risen Head! Alleluia!
He closed the yawning gates of hell, the bars from heaven’s high portals fell; let hymns of praise his triumph tell! Alleluia!
Lord! by the stripes which wounded thee, from death’s dread sting thy servants free, that we may live and sing to thee. Alleluia!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Lighting of the New Flame at the 2018 Easter Vigil at Church of the Redeemer in Kenmore, Washington
Holy Week and Easter at Church of the Redeemer in 2022
To protect those who have yet to vaccinate, can’t vaccinate, or are immunocompromised, masks on until it is gone. We are maintaining masking at Redeemer even though government mandates are over. Please observe social distancing.
Maundy Thursday is April 14, on which the church commemorates the “new commandment,” from John 13:34 and the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus “on the night he was betrayed.”. This day is part of the Triduum, or three holy days before Easter. Worship services are at 12:00 noon (in-person, no music) and 7:00 pm (in-person, livestreamed, music) on Thursday, April 14.
Good Friday is the April 15, on which the church commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus. It is a day of fasting and special acts of discipline and self-denial. Stations of the Cross is at 12:00 noon (in-person) and the Good Friday worship service is at 7:00 pm (in-person, livestreamed, music).
The Easter Vigil on April 16 is the liturgy intended as the first and, arguably, the primary celebration of Easter. It is also known as the Great Vigil. This important worship starts at 9:00 pm (in-person, livestreamed, music).
Easter Day on April 17 is the feast of Christ’s resurrection. Worship services are at 8:00 am (in-person, no music) and 10:00 am (in-person, livestreamed, music).
Easter Day is the annual feast of the resurrection, the Pascha or Christian Passover, and the eighth day of cosmic creation. Faith in Jesus’ resurrection on the Sunday, or third day following his crucifixion, is at the heart of Christian belief.
Easter Day starts the Easter Season, the Great 50 Days. It lasts until the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit. During the Easter season there is no fasting.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry joins other church leaders April 6, 2022, for an online discussion of the friendship between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Registration is free for Brothers in the Beloved Community, with an option to donate.
Hosted by Washington National Cathedral, Brothers in the Beloved Community starts at 4 pm Pacific Time on Zoom. The basis of this discussion is on a book of the same name by Bishop Marc Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California. The discussion explores the relationship between the two men and their efforts to resist harmful forces still at work today.
In addition to Curry and Andrus, speakers at Brothers in the Beloved Community include the following:
Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.
The Rev. Paul Smith, a civil rights veteran, minister, educator, and author.
Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith moderates the discussion.
Several years before King’s death in 1968, Hanh wrote King an open letter. It was part of an effort to raise awareness and bring peace in Vietnam. As a result, the men met and—despite coming from different religions and cultures, as well as warring countries—developed a deep friendship as they worked together for peace.
In 1967 King nominated Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize. He wrote, “Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”
Registrants will be sent information with a Zoom link on April 6.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.
―Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2026. Services at 12:00 noon and 7:00 pm. Gethsemane Watch Vigil from about 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.
Good Friday, April 3, 2026: Services at 12:00 noon and 7:00 pm.
Holy Saturday worship at 9:30 am.
The Great Vigil of Easter, Saturday, April 4, 2025. Service at 8:00 pm. This is the night....
The 3rd Sunday of Easter (Year A), April 19, 2026. Services at 8:00 am (no music) and 10:30 (music). Education classes for adults (9:15 am) and children (9:30 am).
