When the Pulpit is the Locus of Abuse

I am a preacher. It is part of who I am as a human being and I am told I preach a pretty decent sermon. I have always been grateful for the opportunities I have been afforded to offer my understandings from the pulpit. The question I always ask my listeners is whether my sermon had prompted them to think. Most of the time, the answer is yes. I find that very gratifying.

I have always been clear that my approach to preaching speaks only for me; it is not normative for anyone else. Thus it has never been my place to tell other preachers of any stripe how to offer their remarks from the pulpit.

It is my belief that every preacher is called to offer their own vision of the faith as they see fit even as that vision may run completely contrary to my own.  But while my insistence upon the preacher’s privilege extends to anyone who occupies the pulpit, my own recent experience with this diocese has taught me that this courtesy is not always honored by those with power to impose their vision on others.

Fundamental Entrustments

At the heart of this understanding is a fundamental entrustment of the preacher with a platform for his/her thoughts by those assembled. That granting of platform is broad but not absolute.

As I see it, a sermon is an occasion for thoughtful consideration of one’s life individually and the communities in which we live in light of the faith tradition we share. This distinguishes a sermon from presentations which might be laid out in an adult education course or from a guest speaker at an evening event.

That said, there are some preachers whose words are so at odds with those of Jesus that they cannot be provided a platform in a church which purports to follow his way. Culture warriors, white Christian nationalists and hatemongers like those of the Westboro Baptist Church may wrap their messages in the trappings of the Christian tradition, but they have no place in a church whose second Great Commandment is to love one’s neighbor as oneself. While they are rarely invoked, there are limits on the platforms churches should offer.

However, this does not mean that any ideas which a given listener might find disturbing must be avoided. Parishioners are not consumers. A church is not a Burger King. Those in the pews should not presume entitlement to have it their way with a privilege of dictating the content of sermons to suit their comfort level.

It has long been the calling of preachers to “distress the comfortable and comfort the distressed,” a pattern observable in Jesus himself. In the view of this preacher, a good sermon will always call the listener to consider and reconsider their understandings of the faith and the way in which it is being lived out individually and communally. And a good parishioner will take that calling seriously.

If preachers’ audiences have extended their trust to those they have called to their pulpits, that trust must always be reciprocated by the preacher. The need to be sensitive to the needs of a given congregation can make preaching difficult in situations where the preacher does not know his audience. Far too often that prompts preachers to pull their punches when the lessons of the day and its implications for the listeners can provoke strong reactions. In such cases, a preacher playing it safe, concerned more for their own comfort and security than engaging the day’s lessons, sermons can become one more offering of a glib “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so” as a parishioner once described it.

However, in situations where a given pastoral context is central to the gathering, it must always be honored. And when it is not, the result is an abuse of pulpit.

Violations of Trust

Over the years I have seen a number of examples of pulpit abuse in such contexts. Some occurred in traditions other than my own at funerals where the preacher left mourners feeling worse than when they entered the service and at baptisms where the children and their families were merely bystanders in a spectacle which ignored them entirely while the clergy pursued their own interests.

But three examples within my own Episcopal tradition in the past two years have troubled me deeply. Given that I became the target of the very abuse of power mentioned above when I dared to reference it in one of my sermons designed to encourage my embattled parishioners, I now find myself outside the walls of the institution. Five months down the road, I am working hard on letting go of a 31 year priesthood which I have never been able to exercise with any regularity. But as a part of that letting go, I need to briefly discuss these incidents. I need to exorcise these demons from my soul.     

A year and a half ago I attended a priestly ordination service for a woman whose priestly ordination had been held in limbo as a transitional deacon for nine years. (The normal time is six months) That in itself is an abuse of power - not to mention the canonical ordination process itself - but hardly surprising in a diocese which routinely abuses power regarding those who would serve the church.  

The pastoral context of an ordination service demands that the focus of the sermon delivered there be on the ordinand and their life in responding to their calling to ministry. Becoming a priest is a terrifying moment for most of us. The gravity of the responsibilities of priesthood is enormous. The expectations that are soon to fall upon the ordinand can be overwhelming. Thus it is precisely at that moment that ordinands most need to hear words of wisdom, encouragement and support.

But those were not the words offered in the sermon at this service. The ordinand was barely mentioned. Instead, the gathered were subjected to yet another round of Calvinist depravity driven sin and salvation theology, the only tune that purveyors of this perspective seem to know.

As I noted above, in other contexts, I would have simply written this off as an exercise of the prerogatives of the preacher even as I would have undoubtedly tuned out somewhere near the beginning of its delivery. But that was not this context. And the failure to pastorally honor the context at hand, the ordinand and those who had gathered to honor her, in delivering an ideological screed was classic pulpit abuse.

More recently, a diocesan-wide service of confirmation, reaffirmation and reception was held at the parish where I once delivered my own sermons before being banned from the pulpit. Again, the pastoral context of the rite dictated a focus on those making promises in the midst of their communities to live into their new lives as Episcopalians. There is a rich field of sermon possibilities that could be mined for such an occasion, most of them focused on encouraging those beginning new chapters of their spiritual lives as well as reminding the members of their faith communities of their callings to support them in their new lives in community.

But that wasn’t what they heard.

The preacher began by noting that keeping the promises the liturgy required them to make would be difficult. That was a promising beginning. There is a candor in such a recognition worth noting. It provides a moment for pastoral wisdom and support. And it offers the perfect opportunity to recall the words of the Baptismal Covenant, one of the true jewels of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: “I will with God’s help.”

That response recognizes the reality that living into our promises to G-d and our faith communities requires our agency but we can never do it alone. We need divine guidance and, in the words of our post-communion prayers, “strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart.”  

But that’s not where this sermon went. After noting the difficulties of living into these promises, the preacher then told the new and reaffirmed members they would never be able to keep them.  But they were lucky, he said, because Jesus had died for their sins. Thus the judging heavenly king would hold back his punishing arm as a result.

It was a line that would have made Calvinist divine Jonathan Edward (“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”) as proud as it proved alien to mainstream Anglican ears. Whatever else the sermon was about, it was not about the confirmands. This was about the preacher and his perceived need for affirmation of his own wretched theology. And whatever it might have been intended to be, it proved to be yet another example of contextual tone-deafness resulting in pulpit abuse.

“None of that really counts…”

The third example is the worst of the three. It also occurred in this same diocese now stacked with evangelical Theobros recruited by the current bishop.

The context for this service earlier this year was much more sensitive than the pastoral services (as they are referred to in the prayer book) referenced above. It was a funeral. And it was personal for me, celebrating the life of a dear friend who saved my life during my troubled tenure as a teacher in Inverness. He was a devoted Episcopalian and had hosted a beautiful dinner the day of my confirmation into the church 50 years ago this month. His estate had left substantial money to the parish.

The funeral rite itself was well done liturgically. The music was well chosen, some of my friend’s favorite classical pieces, and the organist did a wonderful job of performing them.

Then came the sermon.

It was clear that the rector did not know my friend. This is a common challenge for any cleric officiating at funerals for those they did not know. Such situations call for pastoral words of comfort and hope while leaving any particular eulogies for the deceased to those who knew them. In California, we called that “the talking circle.” But that was not what happened here.

The preacher made brief reference to my friend’s life from the material in his obituary in the service booklet. But then he said, “None of that really counts” continuing that one must have an individual relationship with Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior if they wished to have any hopes of going to heaven. It was yet another insufferable evangelical pitch to save souls rooted in fear of punishment with a promise of reward for those who bought into the tribal vision. (Stage 1 Kohlberg moral reasoning, what must I do to avoid punishment? Stage 2, what’s in it for me? The reasoning of children.)

That a priest who, unlike his bishop, actually attended an Episcopal seminary, would offer such drivel in any setting was bad enough. But this was being imposed on people who were grieving. The near complete omission of focus on our loved one was bad enough. The use of the sermon to pound us with a manipulative message to prompt his listeners to buy into his grim theological understandings bordered on obscenity.

This was not only pulpit abuse. It was, in the words of the national church Title IV commission’s description of the abuse recently inflicted upon our parish by its bishop, “a profound pastoral failure.”

But this would not be the end of the abuse.

The attendees were processed outside into a tight corner of the church property where cremains are interred. The hole had been dug, covered by a piece of plywood. When the celebrant finally arrived, he stumbled through the graveside prayers, losing his largely non-Episcopal attendees in the process. Then, after uncovering the hole, he took out a manila envelope, opened it and removed a clear plastic baggy of cremains. Taking a pair of scissors, he cut the baggy open, and poured the cremains into the hole, immediately plopping the plywood covering atop the hole.

It was ghastly.

There was no opportunity for mourners to cast a handful of soil into the hole. And there were no closing prayers. The only thing that indicated the rite was completed was when the priest turned and walked away.

I was horrified.

I realize priests have different ways of handling funerals. But this performance struck me as completely lacking in any kind of awareness of - not to mention sensitivity toward - the gathered mourners, not the least of which was being subjected to the sight of cremains in a plastic baggy. That was insult added to the injury of a wretched homily. I didn’t think the “profound pastoral failure” at the time of the sermon could have gotten any worse. But I was wrong.

These people deserve better….

My point in raising these incidents of pulpit abuse is not to pass judgment on the clerics involved even as their performances merit critique. All of us who endeavor to preach have engaged in behaviors we weren’t very proud of in retrospect. And as I said at the beginning, I insist upon honoring the right of preachers to speak their truth and officiants to celebrate as they find compelling.

While that was not honored by those with power when it came to my own sermonizing, I still hold to that value. None of us are required to agree with every word that flows from the pulpit, but common courtesy demands we listen politely and critically consider what is spoken before rejecting it.

 But every sermon occurs in a context. And when that context demands pastoral awareness and sensitivity, it should never be abused by those trying to impose their views onto audiences gathered for purposes that lie outside an ordinary Sunday service. A failure to recognize and honor that context is a failure in pastoral duties to those gathered. And a willingness to see such occasions as opportunities for preachers to impose their theological agendas where those present are pastorally vulnerable borders on being predatory.

I recognize that there are preachers whose deeply rooted constructs of depravity-based theology are premised on the notion that buying into their tribe’s theological understandings somehow saves people from eternal punishment. While my Franciscan spirit would see this as incomprehensible, they see it as good news. And so they see their behaviors as doing their audiences a favor, thus imposing them regardless of the context is justified.

It is a good example of how fear makes a particularly poor basis for any kind of thoughtful decision making, particularly when that fear is existential in nature. Fear stops a working mind, chills a loving heart and paralyzes a sensitive soul.

But the concerns I am laying out here are ultimately not about preachers. They are about those assembled in front of them. And in cases when those present are vulnerable mourners at funerals or when the focus of the assembly is on ordinands, confirmands and others standing at the brink of a new chapter in their spiritual journeys, those needs must be the bottom line. When preachers ignore that, lapsing into sermons debatably more designed to win affirmation of their own beliefs from their listeners than to minister to the needs of the assembled, the potential for pulpit abuse is unlimited.

As I often find myself saying these days as I watch these abuses, these people deserve better.

 

Can we hear what the “Nones” are saying to the Church?

“I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day….” Edward Guest.

There is a reason that many people have left their places of worship over the past three decades. In the surveys that study them, most say they continue to hold some understanding of the Holy and seek to live lives in consonance with those understandings. Many mourn the loss of community when they walk away from religious bodies they find no longer speak to their spiritual needs. And many describe the experiences from which they have fled as toxic.

The rise of the Nones (those who answer “none of the above” when queried on religious affiliations) should be a wakeup call to organized religions of every kind. It is behaviors like those I have detailed above that drive thoughtful people out of their pews and into the streets, to paraphrase the mantra of the gay liberation movement. The question is whether those afforded pulpits can hear this critique and respond to it appropriately. Will they “hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church?”

Now I have spoken my piece. I speak for myself here and do not delude myself that these views are somehow normative for others. But I have now gotten this off my chest. And in the process I have released these demons that have haunted my soul. Now it is time to move on. Deo gratias.

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frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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Requiem for a Theological Dream

Thursday, October 1, a 133-year-old dream of theological education in the Episcopal Church was buried. The Church Divinity School of the Pacific has closed its doors to seminarians and the beautiful red brick campus on the edge of the University of California Berkeley will be sold.

That news breaks my heart.

 

The seminary had been struggling to keep the lights on for several years now. Entering residential classes had gradually shrunk and dropped precipitously when online programs began to be offered. At the same time, CDSP ended its graduate programs (Masters of Theological Studies, Masters of Arts, Doctorates of Philosophy) it had offered in conjunction with the Graduate Theological Union and eventually withdrew from the GTU. With no students on campus and no students using the world class GTU library, there was no reason to continue to maintain its physical campus. It closed October 1 and is already up for sale.

Asynchronous Courses from the Comforts of Home

The new self-described “hybrid” program will offer asynchronous online courses over a four-year period with periodic on-site gatherings. This will allow credentials seeking M.Div. students to remain home and gain their degree almost completely on a virtual basis. It will no doubt be much less expensive, but it will also clearly demand much less of the student in terms of sacrifice.

In my experience, the value of any endeavor is measured in the amount of sacrifice it requires.

 

 

This move to online course “delivery” is consistent with a pattern we are seeing around the church of reducing the demands on theological education with its often gut wrenching existential dimensions while focusing on vocational aspects of the priesthood. It is also a pattern that I observed in higher education two decades ago when I was one of the guinea pigs in the shift to asynchronous online degree production that increasingly focused on grades, credit hours and ease in attaining them. The very use of the term “delivery” evidences the shift from a student who must engage the process of becoming educated, not the least of which means attending classes, to the consumer who is paying for credit hours and grades attained by the least demanding manner possible.  

In the diocese where I live, would-be priests are able to gain M.Div. degrees from local theology schools, one of which is hard core Calvinist and the other a branch of the formerly United Methodist seminary Asbury that has broken with the church over LBGTQ+ issues. In both cases, the admissions process guarantees admission only of like-minded students willing to buy into dogmatic conclusions up front.

Much of such degree pursuit occurs online. Seminarians then gain Anglican studies certificates through the Anglo-Catholic Nashotah House seminary, either one year residential or 14 months online, or through the evangelical Trinity Anglican Seminary through asynchronous or Zoom-based online classes paired with intensive, brief residential blocks (often 48-hour weekends or one-week intensives on a seminary campus).

What that means is that the road to priesthood increasingly goes through an online process with little face-to-face engagement with other seminarians or professors. It also means that a comprehensive Anglican education formerly offered by actual Episcopal seminaries like CDSP are largely things of the past. The result is the once highly touted Anglican via media, where high, low and middling churchmen and later women all studied together in seminary and thereafter accepted that via media as the norm in church praxis, is becoming a thing of the past, particularly in dioceses now dominated by those ordained out of non-Episcopal seminaries and online processes.

 

“You will be part of the rock but the rock will crush you…”

Of course, this is personal for me. I was clear I was called to exercise priestly duties even when the local diocese would not even consider me for the ordination process because I was partnered with another man. I resisted the call to priesthood for as long as I could. I struggled with my sense of worthiness and, truth be told, sometimes still do. But when I finally decided I would go to seminary on my own, I did so knowing I would foot the bill. I also knew I would have to find a diocese that would accept me as an ordinand.

Those were pretty formidable odds. But I could not get this crazy idea out of my head that I was called to be a priest, despite the homophobia of the church (not to mention my own internalized homophobia whose demons whispered in my hear “You couldn’t possibly be a priest…”) and the resistance to people like me who questioned constructs like “orthodoxy” and the Bible as somehow “the word of God.”

 

As is my custom, I took this soul wrestling with me on a retreat, this one a visit to Italy with my family. Our first night in Rome I snuck out of the hotel room and walked down to the Piazza di Pietro in front of the Vatican, sat down on the curb below the colonnade amidst the bird shit, and began to pray. “St. Peter, I feel I am called to be a part of the rock. Please speak to me.” The response I soon heard was a very somber male voice which said, “Oh, you will be part of the rock, Harry. But know this: the rock will crush you.”

I came home and began sending out letters to seminaries, applied at five, was accepted at all five and then had to choose. Yale, Sewanee and Episcopal Divinity School offered major aid packages and pressed me on my decision-making process. General offered me an M.A. program with the potential to move into an M.Div. program, no funding, no guarantees. Of the five, C.D.S.P. offered the least financial aid but promised that between loans and work study, they’d help me find enough money to get through. In the end, my work study would be at the GTU Library. It was a great fit.

 

I Came Gladly But at Great Personal Cost

 

In the end, I chose C.D.S.P. for a number of reasons. First, I felt I needed to get out of the South and off the East Coast. I knew what they were all about, the South with all its focus on a largely romanticized and uncritically constructed heritage and the East Coast with its focus on hierarchy and power. I was pretty clear the west coast would be different. I had no idea how different it would be.

Second, Andy wanted to be in California. While he always supported my priestly vocation, his time with the Southern Baptists in his childhood in Augusta, Georgia, had convinced him that Christianity needed to be kept at arm’s length at best. He wanted to be where the Buddhists were. And, truth be told, I wanted to hear what they had to say as well. And in the end, we would sit in a sangha of the New Kadampa Tibetan tradition for two years in San Jose and my Buddhist nun would attend my ordination to the diaconate. I told her she had made me a better Christian than I was before.

Third, while I felt called to be a priest, I also knew from the beginning that I was not destined to run a parish. If I had any doubts about my lack of managerial skills and desire to be in charge, my eight-month internship in my sponsoring parish in San Jose convinced me that I should take my intuitions seriously.

As I began learning in the interfaith colloquium at the GTU while working at the GTU Library, I recognized that my desires to complete my education with a Ph.D. were increasingly shaping up as my end goal. While stand alone seminaries offered narrowly tailored programs that were designed to produce parish priests, the GTU offered the opportunity for a broad theological and religious studies education. And it became clear to me that was where I needed to be.

So CDSP provided me with the opportunity to meet two goals. The first was to become an ordained priest with the hopes of working on a parish staff though not directing it. The second was to provide the beginning place for my doctoral work. In the end, I was able to meet both goals. But, more importantly, CDSP and the GTU would change my life forever.

 

I knew I had made the right choice my first day of classes. We were in an Introduction to the New Testament course and a seminarian from one of the other schools at the GTU began his remarks with the words, “Well, as we all know, St. Paul said….” He was cut off in mid-sentence by the woman seminarian sitting next to me. “No, we don’t all know. Explain what you mean by that.” A wave of exhilaration swept over me. I was definitely in the right place.

 

That Sunday, I attended St. Mark’s Episcopal on the edge of the Cal campus. As is the case in some parishes, the same person read the Hebrew Scripture, led the responsive Psalm and then read the Epistle. An elderly woman with a big purple hat was the lector that morning. She had read the Hebrew Scripture ending with the customary response, “The Word of the Lord,” to which the parishioners responded “Thanks be to God.” She then led the psalm and proceeded to the Epistle.

The lesson that day was from 1 Corinthians 14:33–35 which directs women to "remain silent in the churches," stating they are not permitted to speak and should ask their husbands at home if they want to learn anything. The woman lector read the lesson which was followed by a long pause. At that point she shook her head “No” and simply said, “Here ends the reading.” That in itself was striking. But what was more striking was the parish response. They burst into applause. And I thought to myself, Toto, you’re definitely not in Orlando anymore.

 

It was never easy….

 

My time at CDSP was tough. The first year I was alone, living in the dorms. I had beg un making the 50 mile drive to San Jose to the parish that would eventually sponsor me for ordination. I was enroute back to Berkeley the day the Oakland Hills caught fire and returned to be told to have my worldly possessions loaded in my car and ready to leave when ordered to do so. Fortunately the four story wall of fire headed toward the Cal campus and beyond was blown back into itself by a shift in the prevailing winds and we were saved.

Later that year Berkeley would erupt in rioting in the wake of the Rodney King verdict. In all honesty, I was having some serious second thoughts about this move.

Andy would eventually sell our house in Orlando and move to the Bay Area. We lived in Fremont in the East Bay. I could take the BART to the seminary and Andy commuted across the Bay to Sunnyvale to his job with AT&T. My parish in San Jose was a 20 mile hike and on occasion I used the local bus system to make the commute.

 

But my life was expanding well beyond my wildest dreams at this point. I was part of a seminarian pilgrimage to El Salvador at the end of its civil war. We were there with the World Council of Churches and served as observers of the fragile cease fire in place there. The next year we’d return as international election observers.

 

I fell in love with Latin America in the process and would spend a summer in the countryside of Panama an hour north of Panama City and the Canal as an exchange seminarian. My life changed as a result of what I saw and experienced there beginning with my understanding of my own country and its role in the developing world.

At the end of my four years, I would be ordained deacon in a multicultural liturgy at St. Phillips which ranged from an honor song from a descendant of Crazy Horse to the Gospel being read in five languages that night. My bishop would call my then-partner now husband to the front to recognize his role in my getting to that night. We got a standing ovation from the congregation. That was such a different reality from the homophobia driven eviction from the Cathedral in Orlando we had endured before leaving.

 

 

Six months later I would be ordained a priest. But when my application for the doctoral program at the GTU was declined, I knew I needed another option. I discovered Florida State had just begun its religion doctoral program, applied, was accepted and prepared to move home. At this point, my parents were both being treated for their cancers and I felt the need to be closer to them than three time zones away. I would graduate from CDSP just before leaving and would depart with a world of memories.

 

Who’s Buying the First Pitcher?

 

 

Much of the education I attained at CDSP did not occur in the classroom even as it often began there. From the classroom we headed to what was then called the Coffee Connection down Euclid Avenue from the seminary. Our discussions were animated and provocative. Hearing how others were processing the same information I’d just heard was always interesting. In the afternoons we headed to LaVal’s Pizza where the question was who would buy the first pitcher of Anchor Steam, the famed Bay Area beer. We would sit in the courtyard outside the pub and argue theology. Our professors would pass through, many taking a seat and a role in our discussions, and then move on to their duties.

I never felt completely a part of the community at CDSP, perhaps in part because I lived an hour away by BART my last three years, but more likely because I knew my destination, unlike that of many of my classmates, was not in running a parish. But I managed to develope deep friendships with my fellow seminarians that have endured over the years. I cherish them and the memories I have of my time at seminary. And I feel very sad that the new online credentialism of the CDSP 2.0 will probably not provide its customers that option.

I do not want to suggest that seminary was a joy ride. Most of my classmates, including myself, ended in therapy by the end of the first year. Having your existential foundation jerked out from beneath you has that effect. But there was also a sense of belonging in that suffering. We were all wrestling with our souls. And we did so together. That made all the difference.  

 

The closing of CDSP in its incarnate form comes at a time in my life as a priest that it feels like simply one more closing door in a long chapter of my life. With the revocation of my license to officiate and preach in this diocese, I am clearly outside the walls of the institutional church. I call myself a post-institutional priest. And I am only beginning to discern what that means.

But what is clear is that the seminary I sacrificed so much to attend (I would pay my student loans off four months before I retired), the seminary that permanently changed my life, the seminary whose teaching and experiences I draw on every day in all of the work I do, that seminary is gone.

I cherish the memories I hold of it. And on the coming Celtic Triduum of All Hallows Eve, All Saints and All Souls Days, the ofrenda I learned to create during my time studying Spanish in Mexico will include the photo of my graduating class at CDSP above. It will be a way to express my broken heart’s sad goodbye as I let go of that chapter of life. But I do so with the deepest of gratitude for the opportunity I had to be there. I am very clear that I was very fortunate. And I thank G-d for that.

 

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frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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Encountering a Beloved Saint on his Feast Day

I saw the man sitting on the sidewalk outside the Starbucks as I went in. I’ve encountered him there a number of times along with his wife who often begged in the same shopping center from her wheelchair. As I left the store with my two large dark roasts in both hands, I heard him softly calling to me. Not wishing to engage him with my hands full, I took the coffees to my car, placed them on my roof and then turned back to the man on the sidewalk, pulling the $20 bill from my stack I keep for panhandlers, and walked back to engage him.

It’s my habit to shake the hands of panhandlers who are willing to do so. I look them in the eyes and ask how they are doing. And then I listen. I feel that the recognition of their humanity, listening, looking directly at them, being willing to touch them, is always more valuable than whatever pittance I might offer monetarily though I always give them $20.

I had had conversations with this man in this same location over the past couple of years. Today, I struggled to remember his name. “My name is Leonard,” he said, and I responded, “Oh yes, I remember now, Leonard. How are things going?”

 

A Litany of Heartbreak

I think he was initially a bit taken back that I inquired about his life until he realized we had spoken like this before. But his story this day was grim. His wife had had a heart attack and was in critical care at a local hospital. The day after her hospitalization he had gotten news that his Mother in Detroit had just died of stage 4 liver cancer. And he still is jobless. As hard as it was to hear that heartbreak, I can only imagine the weight of carrying it daily.  

He told me that he was certain he would be able to gather the remaining $21 to pay his rent at the weekly hotel across the street so I left that to him. I did not want the basis of our engagement to be strictly economic in nature. I sense there’s no small amount of self-serving condescension and magnanimity in that kind of engagement. But when he mentioned my $20 would go toward his lodging at the weekly rental hotel across the street, that sparked my curiosity.

I’d visited the hotel years ago when it first opened. So I asked, “What is it like now?” I was unprepared for his response. “Much better since the drug bust last week.” “The drug bust?” I asked. “Yeah, the cops busted the dealers in the place and about 13 of them were arrested. It’s been a lot quieter since then and a lot more peaceful.”

I suddenly found myself thinking back to my days at UF when I had twice discovered that one of my roommates was a drug dealer. In both cases, there were weapons present in our shared space which I was unaware of until the supplier came around to collect from my dealer roommates. I remember how terrifying that was. So I can only imagine how Leonard felt about his current housing in light of that bust. And I had an instant recognition of how fortunate my life had become since those shaky days in Gainesville. Of all the things I might have to worry about these days, weapon bearing drug dealers is not among them.

 

Stumbling Over My Good Intentions

I learned in seminary that there is often little a pastor can say or do that will fix the suffering s/he encounters in pastoral caring. Of course, for many helper types like myself, this presents a real challenge. We want to make things better but we can’t. And so we were taught that in such cases, the ministry of presence is all we have to offer but that often that is precisely what the other needs most. There is something profoundly reassuring in knowing that one is not alone in their suffering.

I wished I had heeded that teaching this morning. But I found myself blurting out the advice my Dad always gave me when I was struggling: “You know, when you are at the bottom, the only way to go is up.” “Yeah, that might be,” he responded.

But I knew at that moment it was a cheap reassurance that was not mine to give. While that maxim my Dad ground into me over the years has often proven reassuring to me in enduring the difficult times through which I have suffered over my lifetime, I also know that whatever bottoms my middle class life has descended to over the years probably bear little resemblance to the darkness and the depths folks like Leonard are facing.

Stumbling over my glib tongue, I realized it was time to go. “Blessings, Leonard” I said as I turned to walk away. At that moment he lit up, quickly reassuring me that he knew G-d was with him, a statement I instantly affirmed and then simply repeated my one word prayer for him as I walked away. “Blessings.”

I got back to my car, still regretting my thoughtless comment to Leonard, and took the coffees off the roof to put into my console. As I began to slide into the driver’s seat, I suddenly heard The Voice whispering in my ear: “These are your parishioners, now, Harry.” I lost my breath for a second, only to hear The Voice continuing, “This is what being a post-institutional priest looks like.”

 

Ministry Outside the Walls

It was at that very moment that I realized this was the Feast of St. Francis. Later this afternoon I will return to my beloved parish to bless the animals at the liturgy we set aside for them each year. While I cannot celebrate or preach this year, the first time in 13 years, I can still bless. And I do not need any bishop’s permission to do that.

When I got home and pulled up my email, I found today’s reflection from Richard Rohr. Not surprisingly, Rohr, a fellow Franciscan, was speaking of Francis on this, his feast day. Here’s what jumped off the page at me:

Francis…saw all things as likenesses of God (vestigia Dei), fingerprints and footprints that reveal the divine DNA underlying all living links in the Great Chain of Being. Creation itself—not ritual or spaces constructed by human hands—was Francis’s primary cathedral, his resting place in God, which then drove him back into the needs of the city. It’s very similar to Jesus’s own movement between desert solitude and small-town healing ministry. The gospel transforms us by putting us in touch with that which is much more constant and satisfying, literally the “ground of our being,” and has much more “reality” to it, rather than theological concepts or the mere ritualization of reality. 

And that was the moment it clicked in my head: Francis was a post-institutional priest, called by G_d to serve the Creation outside the walls of the church even as he kept one foot still inside the religious establishment. His time in Creation (contemplation) drove him back into the city to engage people like Leonard (action). Francis had no guidebook to do what he did. He simply sought to follow the example of the Jesus he found in the Gospels, another post-institutional priest who also found his ministry outside the walls. Like them, I find my Cathedral in Creation itself beginning with my daily prayers said barefoot in my beloved Jungle, which drives me back into the city where my encounters with the divine occur with persons unlikely to be found within the walls of institutional religion.

Persons like Leonard.

Like Jesus and Francis, I have no guidebook to follow. But I have a strong sense of a calling to be open to the unexpected and willing to act upon it, like this day’s encounter with Leonard. And hearing The Voice whispering to me as I left him reminds me that, like Francis and Jesus, I am never alone. The Holy One is always with me and with all of Creation.  Deo Gratias.

On this Feast of St. Francis I am encountering the spirit of the humble poverello of Assisi, the saint whose way I follow and who in turn sought to follow the Way of Jesus I, too, seek to discern and follow. For all of these blessings on this day when the Christian world celebrates my beloved patron, I am grateful. As we Franciscans often say, “Peace and All Good!”       

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frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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Reflection 3: The Better Angels of 9-11

The attacks on America that occurred on September 11, 2001 revealed one of the most intensely depraved images of human nature possible. The loss of human life was enormous. The destruction to the heart of a vibrant city was unimaginable. But the damage this did to our humanity was the deepest wound.

In the light of atrocities like this, there is a very human tendency to lapse into black and white reductionism, to channel collective human Shadow content into caricatures that become sweeping assessments of whole groups of people, most of whom had nothing to do with the events at hand.

We saw that through the lenses of a nebulous Islamophobia that almost immediately became the way many people across America processed the events of 9-11. That fear and loathing would have a very human toll. In Arizona, a Sikh man who was planting flowers to honor the victims of 9-11 was shot dead, his assailant traveling to a nearby gas station and wounding a Lebanese American while proclaiming “I’m a patriot. I’m an American to the core.” Across the country 11 Americans would be slain, several of whom were not Muslim, even as President George W. Bush called for restraint and the  distinguishing of the Islamic faith from the individual acts of terrorists claiming its banner.

But that would not stop that president from launching America into two wars. In Afghanistan American soldiers would torture suspected terrorists in the same Bagram prison the Soviets and the Taliban had used for that purpose and later in Iraq where American torture occurred in Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein’s prison.  

The two wars were ill-conceived, costly and ultimately proved to be losing efforts. And the torture which was utilized stained the soul of an America which had been among the principal architects of the Geneva Conventions that its own agents were violating. American torture soon became a powerful recruitment force for Al Qaeda and ISIS.

This was decidedly not America’s best moment. But it was also not the whole story.

The first responders who arrived at the Twin Towers on 9-11 before their collapse launched into rescuing badly burned victims and leading the occupants of the offices down the towers to safety. Some would give their lives in that selfless public service, among them Franciscan priest Mychal Judge, an out gay man who was the chaplain for the New York Fire Department. In his life and death, the Franciscan priest embodied something larger than any of the categories by which we divide ourselves.

One of those selfless responders was my friend, Stephen Roberts, whom I had known since our time together at the University of Florida. I would ultimately leave the practice of law I was studying to become an Episcopal priest. Stephen would leave the business world for which his MBA was preparing him to become a Reform rabbi. He and his husband lived a few blocks away from Ground Zero in New York. And Stephen would spend the next months of his life offering chaplaincy services to those sifting through the debris in search of anything allowing searchers to identify human remains.

I am very proud to call Stephen my friend.

While 9-11 brought out the absolute worst in human nature, it also brought out the very best. Abraham Lincoln spoke of this potential in his fellow Americans as “our better angels.” And on 9-11, when the demons had finished their deadly work, our better angels began to show up.

But that response came at a cost. The health concerns of those who carried out that grim work at Ground Zero have recently become publicized. Many of them are facing cancers and other serious diseases. We owe these people the very best medical care and support we can give them. That includes ongoing psychological support for those who still experience PTSD all these years later.

Today, let us remember those lost in that horrible day in New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania. Let us remember the many lost on both sides in the subsequent destructive wars on the far side of the world, wars which continue today in the Middle East. Let us remember the wounds to our nation’s very soul that ensued from all of these events. But most importantly, may we always remember our better angels who, in Lincoln’s words, stepped up to help bind up our nation’s wounds.

This day, may we recognize that vengeful destructiveness and mindless hatred of others are not the only responses available to human beings and human societies that have been wounded. Our better angels are always present, if we only allow them to step up. For as Lincoln so ably observed, we can always do better.

 

IMAGE: Recovery of the body of Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM 

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frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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Reflection 2: The Tears of 9-11

The afternoon of September 11, 2001, Valencia Community College chose not to dismiss its classes. After my time at home watching the initial round of news coming out of New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania, I had to go down to Kissimmee to meet my afternoon 20^th CE Humanities class.

When I arrived at the campus, law enforcement had blocked off the circle in front of the main entrance, a reminder of the grim events happening in our world. I hadn’t expected anyone to show. But three stalwart students appeared at my door.

My classroom had an enormous television screen mounted on a wooden frame. It was a holdover from earlier days before monitors and white boards became the norm. The students asked if we could simply watch the news and I readily agreed. A beloved colleague, my office mate from down the hall, poked her head in and asked if she could sit with us. I was only too happy to have her company.

And so we sat and watched. The events got darker and darker until they reached a devastating crescendo. People began jumping out of the windows of the towers. We could see them holding hands, floating down like birds, tumbling head over heels and creating a pink mist above the pavement below when their bodies were broken into pieces upon impact.

It was ungodly.

That was when my weeping began. My heart was absolutely broken. But I was not alone. The three students, all young males, began to weep with me. My colleague, who loved New York and visited whenever she could, began to sob.

I made no attempt to direct any of our interactions that day. It was clear that I was not in control of the events that we were encountering. None of us were. Indeed, that presumption of living in a space where sanity and rationality dictated our collective lives had been shattered.

I remember thinking to myself, “Who intentionally flies a perfectly fine airplane into a building?” But the deeper question lumbering beneath the first was much darker: “Who can we trust? If people are willing to do something like this, what else might they do?”

Our discussion that day was erratic, erupting in short segments of words driven by terror. But what I remember about that discussion was reminding my students and my colleague that we were OK, that we had each other, and how grateful I was to have spent that awful afternoon with them.

One by one, they left the classroom in silence leaving me to shut down the television and the lighting. It had been a long afternoon. But I had not had to face it alone. And I will never forget my first tears over 9-11 that were shed that afternoon along with those of my colleague and my three students.

If there was a lesson we all learned that day, it was that none of us are rugged individuals. There are no self-made men or women. We all became who we are thanks to the many hands who have touched our lives over the years. This day was a case in point that we need one another to be healthy human beings. For that lesson and those who shared it with me, I will always be grateful.  

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frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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