During her visit to Washington, DC, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori addressed, and assisted in working at the Church of the Epiphany’s Welcome Table ministry for the homeless:
Presiding bishop visits Welcome Table ministry
“Each and every one of you is a shepherd,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told nearly 150 parishioners, the Welcome Table choir, and homeless men and women gathered to participate the Welcome Table service April 25 at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, D.C.
Epiphany was one of the presiding bishop’s stops during her April 23-25 visit to the Diocese of Washington. She also visited St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square and St. George’s Episcopal Church in St. Mary’s County, Maryland.
Though skies were overcast and rain fell gently, the pews inside Epiphany were filled with warmth and light. Focusing much of her sermon on sheep and shepherds, Jefferts Schori said, “Shepherds in the ancient world and even today do hard, dirty work. For Jesus to call himself a good shepherd is sort of an insult. Shepherds weren’t people that good Jews came out with in the first century. They did dirty work, and they didn’t observe the law. They weren’t welcome in the temple.”
More on the Presiding Bishop’s visit to Washington DC here with a Q and A between the Presiding Bishop and the congregation at St. John’s, Lafayette Square.