A Sermon within Protest

I begin this morning with a definition clarification:

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a bishop is a man ordained and set apart to lead a local congregation, known as a ward. He is the presiding high priest of the ward, responsible for both spiritual and temporal needs of the members. Bishops serve without pay, are usually married, and typically serve for five years.

Bishops are different in The Episcopal Church

They are part of the professional clergy of The Episcopal Church with seminary education required, experience first as a Priest, and are inclusive in gender, sexuality, race and marital status. Bishops represent Christ and his church, and they are called to provide Christian vision and leadership for their dioceses. The Book of Common Prayer (p. 855) notes that the bishop is “to act in Christ's name for the reconciliation of the world and the building up of the church; and to ordain others to continue Christ's ministry.”

Bishops serve as chief pastors of the church, exercising a ministry of oversight and supervision.

Bishops serve as the focus for diocesan unity and for the unity of their dioceses with the wider church. Since the bishop's ministry is a ministry of oversight, the term “episcopal” (derived from the Greek episcopos, “overseer”) is applied to matters pertaining to bishops. (An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church)

Bishops are elected in a shared leadership model of equal power of the clergy and laity in each Diocese. The Bishops then elect (with the House of Deputies confirming) one of their colleagues to be The Presiding Bishop, who often speaks on behalf of the whole Episcopal Church.

One of the primary tools of Episcopal Bishops are public statements, where the Bishop addresses the Diocese and their community through the lens of The Episcopal Church.

There were many examples of these this past week.

First, there was a Letter from the Episcopal Bishops in the State of California. California has six Episcopal Dioceses. California may be blue politically, but the Dioceses in the state of California includes one of the traditionally most liberal and most conservative in The Episcopal Church. The fact that six Bishops signed one statement is not insignificant. They wrote the following:

Beloved in Christ,

Like all Californians, we are watching with great concern the events unfolding around immigration protests in Los Angeles. We are deeply concerned about the ICE raids and about the potential for violence arising from the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to the Los Angeles area. We are concerned that military deployments will escalate the confrontations unnecessarily, and worry that all of our regions in California may be subject to future deployments that heighten tensions rather than resolving them.

Bishop John Harvey Taylor, the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles, has posted on social media this past weekend about what is happening in Los Angeles and his interpretation of the ways in which local officials, law enforcement, federal agencies, and protesters are all interacting. He expressed deep pain and anger as fourteen people in one single Episcopal congregation in that diocese were detained by ICE on Friday. Certainly, we as Episcopalians are shocked and saddened when any of our own are removed from our beloved community.

In all six of our dioceses, people are concerned and fearful about the denial of due process for those detained and the potential for ICE raids targeting beloved community institutions and people working to support their families. People feel angry and threatened that the haven they sought in our communities is no longer safe. US citizens and legal residents feel deep grief at losing beloved friends and family members. Children whose parents are deported face uncertain futures. In our churches, we strive to protect our members who are at risk."

A day later, our Presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe, wrote a document called “Acting faithfully in troubling times.” In it he wrote:

“What we are witnessing is the kind of distortion that arises when institutions like the military and the State Department are turned on the people they were meant to protect. These mainstays of the federal government, designed to safeguard civil society and promote peace and stability, are now being weaponized for political advantage.

The violence on television is not our only risk. We are also seeing federal budget proposals that would shift resources from the poor to the wealthy; due process being denied to immigrants; and the defunding of essential public health, social service, and foreign aid programs that have long fulfilled the Gospel mandate to care for the vulnerable, children, and those who are hungry and sick.

With all of this in mind, we are finding ways to respond as Christians to what we see happening around us. We are exploring options to support litigation challenging the travel ban on the ground of religious freedom; advocating for federal spending that safeguards the welfare of the most vulnerable; caring for immigrants and refugees in our congregations and communities; and standing in solidarity with other faith groups. In short, we are practicing institutional resistance rooted not in partisan allegiance, but in Christian conviction.

At its best, our church is capable of moral clarity and resolute commitment to justice. I believe we can bring those strengths to bear on this gathering storm. Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting the injustice now being promulgated. That is not a role we sought—but it is one we are called to….

I have been reminded that we are part of a global communion of hope in the Risen Christ. We do not stand alone as we live by our baptismal promises: to persevere in resisting evil, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. In these troubling times, may we find courage and resilience in our identity as members of the Body of Christ.”

Our Episcopal Bishop of Utah, Phyllis Spiegel, posted the following yesterday morning:

“No Earthly Kings — Only Love.

Today, as voices rise across Utah for justice, equity, and dignity, we march not in defiance of faith—but because of it.

As I will share in my Trinity Sunday sermon at Good Shepherd in Ogden: “No earthly ruler, no unjust law, no ideology of exclusion can take the place of Christ the King, whose crown is thorns and whose throne is a cross.”

We walk as disciples of the Triune God—practitioners of Love, proclaimers of Justice, and followers of the Spirit’s call to courageous community.

Join the peaceful witness.

Show up in love.

Stand firm in hope.

And let the Church be found where the people cry out.

Your sibling in Christ the King,

+Bp. Phyllis

It has been estimated that 12.1 million attended protests in The United States yesterday. The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, but were bookended by acts of violence, the early morning shootings of two state legislators in Minnesota, and a shooting near the end of last night’s protest in Salt Lake City.

The Rt. Rev. Craig Loya, Episcopal Bishop of Minnesota, wrote in response to the shooting in Minnesota:

“This news comes against the backdrop in recent weeks of immigration raids being carried out by militarized law enforcement, and celebrated with cruel delight by government officials, the military being deployed in Los Angeles against U.S. citizens, to stop protests in that city, and on a day when the President of the United States has threatened to meet any protestors present at a military parade in the capitol with “heavy force.” The tensions we have lived with for many years now are boiling over to new levels. Those inclined to the kind of murderous violence that occurred in Minnesota today are surrounded by a national climate that encourages those impulses.

Human communities, from congregations to countries, always take on the energy of their leaders. That’s true regardless of how popular the leader might be. The President of the United States, and the senior members of his administration, have, for nearly six months now, led with a chaotic, intentionally provocative, and vindictive energy against perceived critics and enemies, and that is eroding the foundations of our common life and order, and empowering anyone inclined to that same vindictive violence.

As Christians, we proclaim as Lord the one who met a murderous and vindictive empire, not with retributive or self-protective violence, but with immovable love. That love, though he died for it, was not a passive resignation to evil, but a refusal to engage it on its own terms.

As followers of the Lord of immovable love, his posture in the face of the empire of his day must be ours today. We, like Jesus, cannot remain silent in the face of the multivalent attacks on basic human dignity and society we are experiencing. Many of us will participate today in protests around the state and the nation. We must continue to show up, speak up, and witness to a better way than what the American empire offers in this moment.

But we must also, like so many disciples before us, refuse to meet violence with violence, dehumanizing rhetoric with dehumanizing rhetoric. In the months and years to come, we must stand in the face of every threat, every act of violence, every cruel or threatening word, with Jesus’ immovable love, clinging to love’s power, which raised Jesus from the death empire subjected him to, until God’s full reign of peace is fully and gloriously done, on earth as it is in heaven."

I know many of you participated yesterday, or previously, in actions of protest. I not only support your doing so, know that I was there last night fully in my identity as an Episcopal Priest.

Please know that this type of protest is not the only faithful way to respond.

Other ways include

Conversations with people in the context of established relationship.

Speaking up in the midst of something that is said.

Constructive use of social media.

Phone calls to political representatives

Letters to editors

Choices in financial support, including what you buy and what you give

and Prayers for safety, comfort, and well-being for all.

All of these and more make up much of our Episcopal identity.

We are called to engage faithfully and intentionally, with thought, conversation, and action, and a willingness to be open to change of mind and heart.

I wish to return, in closing, to the California Bishops. Their letter concludes:

Our Baptismal Covenant asks us, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being (BCP p. 417)?” This question is a direct and ongoing call to us as persons who follow Christ to live out our calling opposed to injustice, to violence of any kind, and to stand up where human beings are not treated as we would treat a child of God. This question needs to be foremost in our thoughts as we consider our response to the situation in Los Angeles.

In the Episcopal Church, we uphold a proud tradition of advocating for civil rights and supporting the vulnerable in our society. We stand for fierce love and for justice that leads to peace, as well as societal practices that preserve human dignity. With God’s help, we will speak and pray on behalf of all in this situation.

Bishop Taylor has asked for our prayers for Los Angeles, and we invite all our dioceses to pray for the unfolding situation there as well as for peace and justice in all our communities. We ask that you join us in praying:

“Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (BCP p. 823).”

(A sermon given at St. Paul's Salt Lake City on Trinity Sunday, June 15th 2025)