Sermons from Grace Cathedral: Recent Episodes
Grace Cathedral
Sunday Sermons from San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, home to a community where the best of Episcopal tradition courageously embraces innovation and open-minded conversation. At Grace Cathedral, inclusion is expected and people of all faiths are welcomed. The cathedral itself, a renowned San Francisco landmark, serves as a magnet where diverse people gather to worship, celebrate, seek solace, converse and learn.
The Rev. Mary Carter Greene
Canon Pastor
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Sunday, August 9th, 2026
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45B
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 10 Pentecost (Proper 10A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 2 August 2026
Genesis 32:22 - 31 Psalm 17:1 Matthew 14:13-21
The Rev. Susanna Singer
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 9 Pentecost (Proper 10A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 26 July 2026
Genesis 29:15-28 Psalm 128 Romans 8:26-39 Matthew 13:31,44-52
The Rev. Joe C. Williams
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 8 Pentecost (Proper 10A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 19 July 2026
Genesis 28:10-19a
Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
The Rev. Dr. Mees Tielens Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 7 Pentecost (Proper 10A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 12 July 2026
Genesis 25:19-34 Psalm 119:105-112 Romans 8:1-11 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 6 Pentecost (Proper 9A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 5 July 2026
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67 Psalm 45:11-18 Romans 7:15-25a Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
5 Pentecost (Proper 8A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 28 June 2026
Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
The Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
4 Pentecost (Proper 7A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 21 June 2026
Genesis 21:8-21
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
3 Pentecost (Proper 6A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 14 June 2026
Genesis 18:1-15
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
Romans 5:1-8
Matthew 9:35-10:8
Joe C. Williams
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Pride Mass 6:00 p.m.
Sunday 7 June 2026
1 Chronicles 29:14b-19
Psalm 84
John 21:15-24
Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2G20
2 Pentecost (Proper 5A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 7 June 2026
Genesis 12:1-9
Psalm 33:1-12
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
The Very Rev. Joe C. Williams Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA Pentecost Sunday (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 24 May 2026
Acts 2:1-21 Psalm 104:25-35, 37 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 John 20:19-23
The Very Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 7 Easter (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 17 May 2026
Acts 1:6-14 Psalm 68:1-10 1 Peter 4:12-14 John 17:1-11
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 6 Easter (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 10 May 2026 Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:7-18 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21
The Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
5 Easter (Year A) 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday May 3rd, 2026
Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14
The Right Rev. Austin Keith Rios, Bishop of California Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA Saturday, May 2nd, 2026 Isaiah 30:18-21 Psalm 119:33-40 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 John 14:6-14
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
4 Easter (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday April 26th, 2026
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
Remembering is the heart of the Eucharist. When we share bread and wine, we remember the Last Supper, the crucifixion, and the resurrection all at once. We taste both the brokenness of the world and God's victory over death. We glimpse the kingdom. But remembering is not the point. The point is the encounter the remembering makes possible — the moment, like the disciples in Emmaus, when we recognize who has been walking beside us all along.
The Rev. Dr. Mees Tielens
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
3 Easter (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday April 19th, 2026
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-4, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
What does it really mean to have faith? In this Easter season sermon from Grace Cathedral, Malcolm Clemens Young explores the story of Thomas—often called "Doubting Thomas"—to discover that faith is not about passing a test of certainty. Instead, it is about becoming the kind of person who is open to trust, loyalty, and relationship with God. Looking closely at the Greek text of John's Gospel, this sermon challenges the false choice between "literal" and "metaphorical" readings of the Bible, and reframes belief as something lived over time rather than proven in a moment. In a world marked by isolation, skepticism, and declining community, this message invites us to receive something deeper: the breath of the Holy Spirit, the gift of peace, and the possibility of new life. "Do not become faithless, but faithful." Topics include: · Doubt vs. faith: what's the difference? · Why belief is more than intellectual agreement · The meaning of "the eighth day" in Christian life · Loneliness, community, and modern skepticism · Receiving the Holy Spirit as a lived experience Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Second Sunday of Easter The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2G11 2 Easter (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Baptism Sunday April 12th, 2026 Acts 2:14a, 22-32 Psalm 16 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31
The Right Rev. Austin Keith Rios, Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of California
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2G10
Easter Sunday (Year A) 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 5 April 2026
Acts 10:34-43
Ps. 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18
What do we mean when we say "heaven"?
In this Easter Sunday sermon from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Malcolm Clemens Young explores a deeper, richer vision of heaven—not as a distant place we go someday, but as God's dimension breaking into our world here and now.
Drawing on scripture, theology, and memory—from childhood Easters to Mary Magdalene's encounter with the risen Christ—this sermon invites us to see Easter as the moment when heaven and earth meet.
Featuring reflections inspired by N.T. Wright, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the poetry of Anne Porter, this message challenges modern assumptions and opens a vision of grace that is already present among us. Heaven is not far away.It is closer than we think.It is where God calls your name. "Alleluia. Christ is risen!"
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean Grace Cathedral,
San Francisco, CA 2G10 Easter Sunday (Year A) 8:30 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 5 April 2026
Acts 10:34-43
Ps. 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18
Why do Christians gather in the dark on the night before Easter? In this Easter Vigil sermon from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Malcolm Clemens Young explores the meaning of one of the Church's most powerful and ancient services. Moving from the fourth century conversion of Augustine, to the critique of Christendom by Søren Kierkegaard, to the modern revival of the Vigil at Grace Cathedral, this sermon shows how baptism draws us into God's story. Through fire, water, scripture, and song, the Easter Vigil proclaims that Christ's resurrection is not just something we remember—it is something we enter. This is the night of mystery. This is the night of new life. This is the night we step into the story. "Alleluia. Christ is risen!" Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Easter Vigil (Year A) – April 4, 2026 The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2G9 Easter Vigil (Year A) 9:00 p.m. Saturday 4 April 2026 Gen. 1:1-2:4a / Gen. 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 Exodus 14:10-31 /Ex. 15:20-21 Ezekiel 36:24-28 / Ez. 37:1-14 / Rom. 6:3-11 John 20:1-18
The Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer, Precentor Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA Friday, April 3rd, 2026, 3p Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9 Psalm 22:1-11 John 18:1-19:42
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
April 2nd, 2026
6 pm Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13;1-17, 31b-35
The Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA March 31st, 2026 10:30a.m. Chrism Mass Isaiah 49:1-7 Psalm 71:1-14 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 John 12:20-36
What does Hosanna really mean? On Palm Sunday, we shout "Hosanna in the highest"—but this ancient word is not a cheer of celebration. It is a cry for help: "Save us, we pray." In this sermon, we explore how that cry Is answered in impossibly to imagine ways, from Psalm 118 to the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in Gospel of Matthew to our own day. In a time marked by fear, division, and loss of trust, "Hosanna" becomes our own prayer. Drawing on voices as diverse as John Calvin, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Maya Angelou, this sermon reflects on: • Our need for help in a fractured world • The loss of faith in one another • God's unexpected way of saving us—not through power, but through love Holy Week reveals a surprising truth: God's rescue comes not by force, but through the suffering, love, and self-giving of Christ. As the world trembles, we join the ancient cry: Hosanna — Help us, God.
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2G8 Palm Sunday (Year A) 11a.m. Eucharist Sunday March 29th 2026 Matthew 21:1-11 Isaiah 50:4-9a Psalm 31:9-16 Philippians 2:5-11 Matthew 26:14-27:66
What is resurrection—and what does it mean to truly live "in the Spirit"? In this powerful Lenten sermon from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Malcolm Clemens Young explores the raising of Lazarus (John 11) and the deeper meaning of resurrection—not just as life after death, but as a transformed way of seeing and living now. Drawing on the Gospel of John, contemporary historian Ana Racquel Minian, Jon Levinson, Kevin Madigan, Athanasius and early Christian witness, this sermon wrestles with a pressing ethical question: Is it ever acceptable to cause someone to suffer for the sake of the greater good? From the tears of Jesus at Lazarus' tomb to modern immigration detention policies, this message challenges us to reject systems that justify cruelty—and instead embrace the liberating, life-giving Spirit of Christ. ✨ Themes include: * The meaning of resurrection in John's Gospel * "I am the resurrection and the life" explained * Christian ethics and the danger of utilitarian thinking * Immigration, human dignity, and moral responsibility * What it feels like to live "in Christ" Like Lazarus, we are called out of our tombs—unbound and set free. 📍 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco📅 Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year A) The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2G6 5 Lent (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday, March 22nd, 2026 Ezekiel 37:1-14 Psalm 130 Romans 8:6-11 John 11:1-45
The Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California March 15th, 2026, 11 a.m. Eucharist Deuteronomy 6:1-9 Psalm 119:1-8 Hebrews 9:11-14 Mark 12:28-34
The Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer, Precentor Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA The Third Sunday in Lent, March 8th, 2026, 11 a.m. Eucharist Exodus 17:1-7 Romans 5:1-11 Psalm 95:1-7 John 4:5-42
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene, Canon Pastor Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA Sunday, March 1st, 2026 11 a.m. Eucharist Genesis 12:1-4a Psalm 121 Romans 4:1-5,13-17
The Very Rev. Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E4, O5 1 Lent (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday February 22nd, 2026 Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 Psalm 32 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11
The Very Rev. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2G3, V5 Ash Wednesday 6 p.m. Imposition of Ashes & Eucharist Wednesday, February 18th, 2026
Joel 2:1-2,12-17 Psalm 103:8-14 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
The Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer, Precentor
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, February 15th, 2026, 11am Choral Eucharist
Exodus 24:12-18
Psalm 99
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9
The Very Revd Andrew Tremlett
Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, London UK
"But we speak God's wisdom, a hidden mystery" (1 Cor. 2.7) At the heart of the Christian gospel is Christ crucified – a message which baffles the wise and the powerful. But how does this Gospel speak into an era of deep cultural change, where the old norms are passing away before our eyes and yet the future is uncertain. St Paul encourages to 'own' the message of redemption; to realise that this Gospel will confound many; and, as we prepare for Lent, to know that Christ's redeeming love begins in the transformation of our own lives.
Preached on Sunday February 8th, 2026
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E1
4 Epiphany (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 1 February 2026
Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
The Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios
Bishop, Diocese of California
Preached on Sunday, January 25th, 2026
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23
The Rev. Canon Dr. Stephanie Spellers
Canon in Residence, St. Bartholomew's, New York
Preached Sunday January 18th, 2026
The Second Sunday After the Epiphany
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
The Rev. Joe C. Williams, Succentor
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
January 11th, 2026
Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Matthew 3:13-17
The Rev. Mary Carter Greene, Canon Pastor
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
The Second Sunday After Christmas, 11a Eucharist
Sunday January 4th, 2025
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 84:1-8
Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
Matthew 2:1-12
The Rev. Joe C. Williams, Succentor
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
Sunday, December 28th, 2025 11 a.m. Eucharist
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 137:13-21
Galations 3:23-25, 4:4-7
John 1:1-18
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene, Canon Pastor
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
December 25th, 2025 11 a.m. Eucharist
Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98
Hebrews 1:1-12
John 1:1-14
The Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios
Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of California
Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2025
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96:1-4, 11-13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Are we living in a computer simulation, or are our lives more meaningful? In this Christmas Eve sermon from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Malcolm Clemens Young explores how the Christmas story offers a powerful counter-narrative to our technological age.
Drawing on philosophy, literature, and personal experience, this sermon addresses:
- The difference between digital consciousness and embodied spirituality
- How God speaks through silence, ordinary moments, and even tragedy
- Finding meaning beyond the "American dream" narrative
- Experiencing God's presence rather than just proving God's existence
- The Christmas message: "You are loved by God"
Featuring insights from Nick Bostrom's simulation theory, The Matrix, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and reflections on grief, joy, and the peace that surpasses understanding.
Perfect for anyone questioning meaning in modern life, seeking spiritual depth during the holidays, or exploring how ancient wisdom speaks to contemporary challenges.
📍 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco 📖 Scripture: Isaiah 62:6-12, Psalm 97, Titus 3:4-7, Luke 2:8-20 🎄 Christmas Eve 2025
#ChristmasSermon #Philosophy #Spirituality #GraceCathedral
The Rev. Mary Carter Greene, Canon Pastor
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7,16-18
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25
The Rev. Joe C. Williams, Succentor
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Isaiah 35:1-10
Luke 1:46-55
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Malcolm Clemens Young reflects on Christian waiting as both a spiritual practice and a lived experience. Through the story of his lifelong friend Nick Haan—an adventurer, humanitarian, and creator of the global IPC famine-measurement system—Young illustrates how longing, loss, hope, and purpose shape our journey toward God. He weaves theology, personal narrative, and cultural observation to show that purification by love is central to life in this sacred "in-between" time. Ultimately, this Advent sermon invites listeners to recognize what holds them back from living fully as God's beloved children and to enter Advent with open hands, deep longing, and renewed expectation for the One who is coming.
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72:1-7,18-19
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
November 30, 2025
Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
The Reverend Dr. Susanna J. Singer
Assisting Clergy Grace Cathedral
The Reign of Christ: Proper 29
11 am Eucharist
Sunday 23 November 2025
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43
Discover why the world is not as it seems through a stunning surfing revelation and Jesus' shocking prophecy about Jerusalem's magnificent Temple. In this powerful Pentecost sermon from Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, Dean Malcolm Clemens Young unveils how God's reality of love and joy lies hidden beneath the surface of worldly power—and what this means for us today.
What You'll Discover:
✅ The surfing moment that revealed paradise hidden in the ordinary gray world
✅ How Jerusalem's dazzling Temple—covered in gold and silver—seemed permanent but was destined for destruction
✅ What "apocalyptic" literature really means: an unveiling of hidden truth, not just disaster predictions
✅ Why Jesus contrasted the wealthy donors with the poor widow who gave everything
✅ How the early church survived as an illegal religion facing persecution for refusing to worship Roman emperors
✅ The revolutionary nature of early Christian communities that welcomed everyone equally—slaves and free, men and women, rich and poor
✅ How the Eucharist became a radical act of love that upended Roman social hierarchy
✅ Why theologian Karl Barth said Jesus' whole mission is to bring joy—even before faith
✅ The connection between enduring suffering and gaining your soul
✅ What Ingathering Sunday teaches us about rejecting the rule of "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"
This message offers hope for anyone seeking to see beyond surface appearances to God's deeper reality of transformation and love.
About This Sermon:
Preached: November 16, 2025, Location: Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California Service: 23 Pentecost (Proper 28C, Track 1), 11 am. Eucharist | Ingathering Sunday Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-25, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:5-19 Preacher: Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean
Related Topics: Apocalyptic literature, Jerusalem Temple destruction, early church persecution, Christian martyrs, Roman persecution, Eucharist history, social justice, Karl Barth theology, Christian joy, endurance and suffering, Ingathering Sunday, biblical prophecy, Luke Gospel, new heavens and new earth, radical equality, counter-cultural Christianity, religious freedom, immigrant rights, dignity for all, Grace Cathedral sermons
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#ApocalypticVision #JesusTeaching #EarlyChurch #ChristianPersecution #SocialJustice #Eucharist #KarlBarth #ChristianJoy #LukeGospel #TempleDestruction #RadicalEquality #GraceCathedral #EpiscopalChurch #SanFrancisco #Sermon #Christianity #Faith #Hope #Transformation #BiblicalProphecy #ChristianHistory #SpiritualGuidance
LifeAfterDeath #Resurrection #Grief #Requiem
Discover what Jesus really teaches about life after death through a deeply personal story about loss and hope. In this moving All Souls Day sermon from Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, Dean Malcolm Clemens Young shares the story of his beloved dog Poppy's peaceful death and explores Jesus' profound answer to the Sadducees' question about resurrection.
What You'll Discover:
✅ The story of Poppy's last walk and what it teaches about grief and loss
✅ Why the Sadducees tried to trap Jesus with their question about marriage and resurrection
✅ What "Levirate marriage" reveals about ancient strategies for dealing with death
✅ Jesus' response: why human conventions don't apply in the age to come
✅ The meaning of being "like the angels" and "children of God"
✅ How God's kingdom is already here, even amid our grief
✅ A beautiful vision of what awaits those we love (including our pets)
This message offers comfort for anyone grieving a loss or wondering what happens after we die.
About This Sermon:
Preached: November 9, 2025
Location: Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California
Service: All Souls Requiem, 11 am. Eucharist with Mozart Requiem
Series: Proper 27C Scripture: Job 19:23-27a, Luke 20:27-38
Preacher: Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean
Related Topics: Life after death, resurrection, grief and loss, pet loss, do dogs go to heaven, All Souls Day, Sadducees and Pharisees, Levirate marriage, Luke Gospel, children of God, Christian hope, Mozart Requiem, comfort in grief, eternal life, Grace Cathedral sermons
📺 Subscribe for weekly sermons and spiritual guidance
#LifeAfterDeath #Resurrection #Grief #PetLoss #AllSoulsDay #ChristianHope #LukeGospel #Comfort #EternalLife #GraceCathedral #EpiscopalChurch #SanFrancisco #Sermon #Christianity #Faith #Hope #Heaven #MozartRequiem #SpiritualComfort #ChristianFaith #BiblicalTeaching
All Christians are called to be Christ's ambassadors in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5.18). That means following Christ into the fractures of the world around us - ready to heal the wounds of history, to learn to live with difference and celebrate diversity, and build a culture of justice and peace. For those being baptised on this All Saints Sunday it is their calling too, wherever life may take them - and to take encouragement from the story of Coventry where we learned that reconciliation is possible, even when things may seem at their worst.
The Very Rev. John Witcombe, Dean of Coventry Cathedral
The Rev. Rebecca Lyman
Samuel Garrett Professor of Church History Emerita, The Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Sunday, October 26th, 2025
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 25
Joel 2:23-32
Psalm 65:1-8 2
Timothy 4:6-8,16-18
Luke 18:9-14
How do we live faithfully in a world of violence and chaos? Jesus and other Jewish leaders wrestled with this question under Roman occupation in Judea. In the Gospel of Luke this morning Jesus gives us another story about the broad mercy of God and the reversal of our usual expectations of piety: who prays in authentic relation to God, the righteous one or the repentant thug? In a world saturated with grace, Jesus grounds our courage in divine faithfulness and human solidarity. Prayer changes us to live in our particular vocations as salt and light.
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F34
19 Pentecost (Proper 24C, Track 1) 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 19 October 2025 | Children's Sabbath
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8
The Rev. Joe C. Williams, Succentor
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 23
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Jeremiah 29:1,4-7 2
Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F33
St. Francis Sunday (Year C) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 5 October 2025 | Pet Blessing
Job 39:1-18
Psalm 121
Acts 4:32-35, 5:1-11
Luke 12:13-21
The Rev. Canon J. Sierra Reyes
Canon to the Ordinary, The Diocese of California
The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels
11 am Eucharist
Sunday 28 September 2025
Genesis 28:10-17
Psalm 103:19-22
Revelation 12:7-12
John 1:47-51
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F29
14 Pentecost (Proper 19C) 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 14 September 2025 | Congregation Sunday
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F28
Evensong 60 5:30 p.m. Choral Evensong
Thursday 11 September 2025 | Chorister Investiture
1 Chron. 15:16, 19-25, 28
Psalm 146
2 Cor. 3:1-3
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F27
13 Pentecost (Proper 18C) 11a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 7 September 2025
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Psalm 139:1-5, 13-17
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33
In this sermon, the Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi explores the theme of the stranger in scripture, Christian tradition, and contemporary life. From Israel’s exile to Jeremiah’s lament, from the Annunciation to Mary to Joseph of Arimathea’s plea for Jesus’ body, God appears as both stranger and guest. Jesus challenges us to take the lower place and to invite those we do not know to the banquet. In a time when immigrants and neighbors are imperiled, the call is clear: to recognize Christ in the stranger, and to welcome all to the table of shared humanity.
Proper 17C • Jeremiah 2:4-13 • Psalm 81:1,10-16 • Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16 • Luke 14:1,7-14
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 11 Pentecost (Proper 16C) (RCL) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 24 August 2025
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17
Not Waving but Drowning
"When he laid his hands on her she stood up straight and began praising God.” Luke 13
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
The Rev. Joe C. Williams
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:7-14
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene
August 10, 2025
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50: 1-6
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40
In this sermon preached by the Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi, inspired by a summer storm and the mountaintop visions of scripture, we are invited into awe before the holiness of God. This holiness is revealed not only in overwhelming power but in justice, equity, and love. Echoing Moses’ transformation and Jesus’ transfiguration, Rossi calls us to be formed through prayer, community, and sacrament. Holiness is not for the mountaintop alone but sends us into the world for the sake of others. At the baptismal font, we remember our call: to live as consecrated people in God’s own mission.
The Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ: • Exodus 34:29-35 • Psalm 99 • Luke 9:28-36
"...live your lives in Christ, rooted and built up in him..." (Col.2).
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
6 Pentecost (Proper 11C) RCL 8:30 and 11 a.m.
Sunday 27 July 2025 | SF Marathon
Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13
Grace Cathedral San Francisco, CA
6 Pentecost (Proper 11C) RCL 8:30 and 11 a.m.
Sunday 20 July 2025 | Returning from the UK
Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42
As Martha served you, Lord, so too may we with faithful hearts and loving care prepare all things in fitting fashion for your feast. But grant us more. O Lord, that as we work we may be tuned with Mary’s ear to hear in all we do, the lessons that you teach. [i]
What is God saying to you now, in this season of your life?
The Rev. Joe C. Williams
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
July 13, 2025 11 a.m. Eucharist
Amos 7:7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10: 25-37
Each time I hear this particular passage in the Book of Amos, I can’t help but think about the sculpture in Christ Chapel at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin where I attended graduate school. Sitting quietly by itself in the corner is a memorial to the life and work of Bishop John Hines, former presiding bishop and sometime Bishop of Texas. It sits where light filters through coloured glass and shadows dance across the stone floor, bronze and steel reach skyward, and from heaven’s height, a plumb line descends—not merely metal and cord, but the very heartbeat of God made manifest. Inscribed beneath in ancient cadence: “Amos, what seest thou?”
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
July 6, 2025
11 a.m. Holy Eucharist, Proper 9C
In this homily, the Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi draws from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1957 sermon on Ghanaian independence to illuminate Jesus' words, "I watched Satan fall from heaven," as a metaphor for the fall of oppressive powers. Rossi's homily calls Christians to resist injustice not with violence, but through faithful, embodied action: crossing boundaries, building community, and stewarding creation. Echoing Paul, it urges perseverance in the work of the common good. The oppressor will not fall from the sky. We must march with God until dignity and peace belong to all.
2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 29, 2025 - 11 a.m Eucharist
2 Kings:2:1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 29, 2025 - 11 a.m Eucharist
2 Kings:2:1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 22, 2025 - The Second Sunday After Pentecost
1 Kings 19:1-15a
Psalm 42:1-7
Galatians 2:23-29
Luke 8:26-39
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 22, 2025 - The Second Sunday After Pentecost
1 Kings 19:1-15a
Psalm 42:1-7
Galatians 2:23-29
Luke 8:26-39
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 8, 2025
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104::25-35, 37
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, 25-27
Diocesan Ordinations of a Deacon and Priests
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 7, 2025
Isiah 6:1-8
Psalm 43
Ephesians 4-7, 11-16
John 6:35-38
Diocesan Ordinations of a Deacon and Priests
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 7, 2025
Isiah 6:1-8
Psalm 43
Ephesians 4-7, 11-16
John 6:35-38
Diocesan Ordinations of a Deacon and Priests
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
June 7, 2025
Isiah 6:1-8
Psalm 43
Ephesians 4-7, 11-16
John 6:35-38
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
June 1, 2025 - 6 p.m. Pride Mass
1 Corinthians 29:14b-19
Psalm 84
John 21:15-24
“And let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Rev. 22).
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Rev. 22:12-14,16-17,20-21
John 17:20-26
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 11 a.m. Eucharist
May 25, 2025
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
John 14:23-29
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F16
5 Easter (Year C) RCL 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 18 May 2025 | Bay to Breakers
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
Most holy God, make all things new. Make all things new, beginning with us. Amen.
“People don’t realize how a [person’s] whole life can be changed by one book.” I came across this sentence at the age of twenty-two in a book that changed my life, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I put on his worldview like a pair of reading glasses that suddenly brought the truth about our society into focus. Tomorrow we celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of his birth at a historical moment when his teachings could hardly be more important.
Our Acts passage concludes with Luke writing, “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11). How can we too experience this “repentance that leads to life?” The Greek word for repentance is metanoia. It means a change in our nous, the very core of our being, in the very worldview that guides our decisions. All our readings today describe new life, a new pattern for human relationships, a new creation, even a new heaven and earth.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
The Fourth Sunday in Easter, Mother's Day
May 11, 2025
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30
This sermon explores what makes a true movement leader, building from the gospel passage from John 21 and scholarship of Raymond Brown. Love, vicarious authority, and sacrifice emerge as the Christlike qualities needed—not only in the church but in social movements today. From Occupy to Black Lives Matter, we see the power and risk of decentralized movements. Our call as people of faith is to recognize, support, and embody leadership that is loving, accountable, and willing to sacrifice for the common good.
Easter 3C RCL: • Acts 9:1-6,(7-20) • Psalm 30 • Revelation 5:11-14 • John 21:1-19
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F13
Easter Sunday (Year C) 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 20 April 2025
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1,2,14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Luke 24:1-12
In this sermon, the Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi explores the profound theological and emotional struggle to find meaning and God's presence amid suffering and atrocity, using the lens of the aftermath of the Shoah (Holocaust.) In all circumstances, even in the face of overwhelming evil, there is a human impulse to seek understanding through faith. The message affirms God's presence not in power or escape, but in solidarity with suffering — applying Jewish feminist theologian Melissa Rafael’s assertion that God is in the ashes.” Through the crucifixion, it portrays divine compassion and calls the faithful to witness, serve, and love amid injustice, embodying Christ’s presence in a wounded world.
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 1:23-26
John 13:1-17,31b-35
Clergy and laity of the diocese gather to renew their vows of ordination and services in a beautiful Holy Week liturgy with the Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, preaching and presiding. This year, we will joyfully install the Very Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge as Dean of the San Francisco Deanery. Further, Oil of Chrism is consecrated in the midst of the liturgy, and healing oil blessed. Oils will be made available to the congregations of the diocese, and containers will be provided.
In her Palm Sunday homily, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde reflects on the tension between purposeful action and humble acceptance, using Jesus’ journey to the cross as a model of courageous surrender. She draws on Scripture, the Serenity Prayer, and personal experience to explore how we are called to live with intention even when faced with hardship or circumstances beyond our control. Jesus' deliberate path into Jerusalem and his ultimate acceptance of suffering illustrate a profound trust in God—not passivity, but a love-rooted surrender that brings strength and freedom. Budde invites listeners to open their hearts during Holy Week, to name their struggles honestly, and to find grace in the stillness, the silence, and the shared journey with Christ through whatever cannot be changed.
The intensive sensory experience of today’s Gospel might obscure the context of a meal. This is especially poignant in a gospel that has no institution narrative, but offers a rich Eucharistic interpretation through themes of memory, community, and ethics. Mary’s act of anointing Jesus symbolizes memory, recalling Jesus’ command to remember Him. The community aspect is highlighted by Mary’s role as a full disciple, reversing social hierarchies. The ethical message challenges Judas’ insincere concern for the poor, urging the community to embody Christ’s love in service to the world.
Isaiah 43:16-21
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8
Psalm 126
Lent 5C
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
March 30, 2025
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke15:1-3, 11b-32
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F12
3 Lent (Year C) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday
23 March 2025
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
The time has come to change your life. Alex Ross writes about a sound and light installation by the composer John Luther Adams (1953-) at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. It is called The Place Where You Go to Listen. The title refers to Naalagiagvik, a beach on the Arctic Ocean, where a particular Inupiaq woman could hear and understand the voices of whales, birds, other creatures and even the whole planet around her.
“O God… my soul clings to you; your right hand holds me fast” (Ps. 63).
March 16, 2025
The Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F10
1 Lent (Year C) 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 9 March 2025 | Litany of Penitence
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
Are you living your real life? Or are you merely trying to avoid or dull the pain of existing? So much is at stake these days. And because we are involved there is no simple answer.
We give this holy instant to you O God. Guide us as we follow, certain your direction will lead us into peace. Amen. [i]
[i] Based on Norwood Pratt’s prayer. “This holy instant I would give to you. Be you in charge this day. I would follow you certain your direction gives me peace. Create in me a clean heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me” 6 March 2025.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F9 Ash Wednesday 12:00 p.m. Eucharist Isaiah 58:1-12 Psalm 103:8-14 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
The Last Sunday After the Epiphany
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
“Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and you will see the things that are in heaven.”Amen
Exodus 34: 29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3: 12-4: 2
Luke 9: 28-36
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F7
7 Epiphany (Year C) 8:30 and 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 23 February 2025
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50
Luke 6:27-38
In these days of enmity how shall we live? This sermon is about the good news that even today we can live with grace and joy.
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Lk. 6).
Cathedral , San Francisco, CA
16 February 2025
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-25
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F5
5 Epiphany (Year C) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 9 February 2025
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 138
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11
“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets… do not be afraid (Lk. 5).”
This week with great emotion my friend Erin said to a group of us, “What do I do?” I take this to mean, “In the midst of unprecedented political turmoil (for instance, when USAID has ceased to exist), how do we respond to the fear surrounding us?”
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2F4
The Feast of the Presentation 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 2 February 2025 | Displacing 4 Epiphany
Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
What exactly is a sermon? What are we doing together and what do we hope happens?
This might seem like an unimportant question to ask. In the last two weeks 1500 January 6 rioters were pardoned or had their sentences commuted and many wonder if right-wing militias now regard themselves as immune to prosecution. $3 trillion dollars in federal grants were frozen and then unfrozen. A letter went out to 2 million federal employees (twice) asking them to resign. Hundreds of other government employees including civil servants at the highest level of our justice system have been fired. 25% tariffs are being imposed on our closest neighbors and trading partners.
We see preparations for mass deportations. We hear ominously repeated phrases like,“defending women from gender ideology extremism,” and, “restoring biological truth to the federal government.” The trans people in our congregation, among our clergy, and across the land are being singled out, when they are just the sort of humans Jesus loved the most and sought to defend.
“O God we long for your truth. Let your spirit help us to understand what we believe.”
Bishop of California
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
January 26, 2025
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-13a
Luke 4:14-21
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 19, 2025
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco CA
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11
Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
- What stands in the way of having a deeper faith? On August 5, 1949 a crew of fifteen elite US Forest Service smokejumpers, or airborne firefighters, stepped out of their plane above a remote wildfire in Montana. Within an hour all but three of them were dead or mortally burned. They were caught by flames as they ran uphill through dried grass on a steep slope trying to reach a higher ridge. [1]
The University of Chicago English Literature professor Norman Maclean (1902-1990), who himself had experience as a fire fighter, happened to be in town and took the time to visit the fire even as it still burned. The men who perished were mostly in their early twenties and their stories haunted Maclean until he retired from teaching decades later and began writing about them.
He begins his book Young Men and Fire saying, “The problem of self-identity is not just a problem for the young. It is a problem for all the time. Perhaps the problem. It should haunt old age, and when it no longer does it should tell you that you are dead.” [2]
Maclean found his self-identity wrapped up in the tragedy. And so he studied what happened intently: the physics of fire (how a blowup happens and burns uphill), the geology, weather, terrain and botany of that particular river valley and hillside, safety changes that the tragedy inspired at the Forest Service.
Maclean notes that from the arrangement of the bodies rescue crews observed that most men had fallen and gotten up again. He writes, “at the very end beyond thought and beyond fear and beyond even self-compassion and divine bewilderment there remains some firm intention to continue doing forever... what we last hoped to do on earth.”
His last paragraph says, “I, an old man, have written this fire report… it was important to me, as an exercise for old age, to enlarge my knowledge and spirit so I could accompany young men, whose lives I might have lived, on their way to death. I have climbed where they have climbed, and in my time I have fought fire and inquired into its nature… I have lived to get a better understanding of myself and those close to me, many of them now dead… I have often found myself thinking of my wife on her brave and lonely way to death.”
- What stands in the way of having a deeper faith? This week in a group my friend Chris directed this question to me. At first I didn’t say anything and let the conversation flow. I had in mind the writer Mary Karr’s observation that, “Talking about spiritual activity to a secular audience is like doing card tricks on the radio.” [3] But then another friend asked me the same question. So let me try to answer here.
I do not think that the major obstacle to deeper faith has much to do with belief. This is made more complicated because in our time of relative spiritual naiveté many people do not seem aware that we have to learn an adult faith. Paul writes, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways” (1 Cor. 13:11).
Another factor is that many modern people feel that they don’t have enough time to come to church or pray. Their work life and other obligations squeeze everything else out. Twenty years ago Robert Putnam pointed out that instead of joining bowling leagues as they once did many people are bowling alone. In other words, people are more isolated and not joining groups and civic organizations in the way they once did. Some people may have an idea of who they might find in a church and simply do not want to be around that kind of person. I can imagine someone with integrity being afraid that faith creates an obligation to take care of other people. And it does.
Despair is also a barrier. Some look at pain in the world and think God is at fault or that this proves there is no God. They have never been introduced to a more subtle form of faith in a God who suffers along with us in the person of Jesus.
I did not say any of this in our conversation. Instead I offered a short response and said: A profound barrier to having faith in our time is rapidly accelerating capitalism. This worldview has become so pervasive today that we are living examples of David Foster Wallace’s joke. You remember the old fish swims past two younger ones and says, “How’s the water?” The younger fishes swims on for a bit. Then one turns to the other and says, “What the heck is water?” [4]
What I mean by capitalism is an expanding set of values that colonizes our inner life and every domain of our daily experience. This includes a sense that the world is inert or dead, that everything can be measured objectively and valued. It makes our interactions into transactions. It turns gifts into investments and makes non-work activities seem somehow wasteful.
This kind of consciousness leads us to see ourselves as insatiable consumers who can never get enough and others as means to our own ends. It erodes a sense of gratitude and implies that good things have all been earned. It makes radically accelerating inequality seem inevitable even when this destabilizes democracy (and all other forms of community). Above all in our case capitalism is leading us to an extreme individualism that does radical damage to human dignity.
In response, my friends talked about how great life is in the twenty-first century and how it was not that long ago when half of Americans did not have access to warm showers. And I told them about how a society’s income inequality is directly correlated with mental illness, and about the misery I encountered that day going twice through the Tenderloin among people suffering so gravely from mental illness and addiction.
I have a friend who lives in a small city apartment. Yes, she has a hot shower. But she wants me to call her every week because she is so alone that no one will even notice when she dies.
Climate scientist Gus Speth writes, “I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought with 30 years of good science we could address those problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy – and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation and we scientists don’t know how to do that.” [5]
- My friends should have asked a more interesting question, “what can remove these obstacles to faith?” The English translation of today’s gospel states that those going out to see John the Baptist were “filled with expectation.” A better translation of this (prosdokōntos) would be foreboding or dread. That was not the world of what some would prematurely call late stage capitalism, but the shocking violence of those times would not be entirely unfamiliar to us.
Did you wonder about the verses that were omitted in our reading (Luke 3:18-20)? They interject a short reference to King Herod who later killed John in prison. And yet Luke writes, “John proclaimed the good news to the people” (Lk. 3). What is this good news? First, even though our inner lives seem thoroughly colonized by a world picture that seems to be leading to the death of our humanity and our planet, we can be changed. The word Luke uses is metanoia and means a change of mind or heart which we call repentance.
Second, don’t be confused and think that there are some people who are wheat and others who are chaff. Just as a single grain has both parts, each of us do too. And through prayer we have Jesus’ help as we try to separate what is good in our life so that it will thrive and minimize the prejudices and destructive thoughts that distort us.
Finally, let me assure you that deeper than all our thoughts there is a place within us where we can meet God. That voice that speaks quietly to Jesus says the same thing to us too. If you listen this morning you will hear in your own way God saying, “You are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased” (Lk. 3).
My friends what stands in the way of having a deeper faith – not just in general, but for you? The world around us is burning. 153,000 LA County residents are under mandatory evacuation orders and an area greater than the size of San Francisco has been reduced to ash. Our governor and next president are publicly feuding. [6] Many of us feel a sense of foreboding as if we were trapped halfway up a hill only just above the rising flames.
Through a lifetime of studying their story Norman Maclean saw similarities between those young men each one knowing he was alone at his death and Jesus. In Young Men and Fire Maclean writes about the group’s foreman Wagner Dodge who lit a safety fire and tried to convince his men to follow him into the protection of the already charred land. Strangely enough going toward and more deeply into the fire was ultimately what saved his life. Perhaps this is true for us also.
In our time we have fought fire and inquired into its nature. Each of us is trying to reach a higher ridge. After we have lived for a better understanding of ourselves and those close to us we each arrive at the same place. And at the very end beyond thought and beyond fear and beyond even self-compassion that is where we meet the one who has climbed everywhere we have climbed, the one who is closer to us than we are to ourselves. And we shall hear the voice of the One who loves us.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Gulch_fire
[2] Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) xiii, 300-1.
[3] Matthew Boulton, “Theologian’s Almanac,” SALT, 12 January 2025. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2025/1/7/theologians-almanac-for-week-of-january-12-2025
[4] David Foster Wallace, “This Is Water,” Commencement Speech, Kenyon College, 2005. https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
[5] Cited in a letter from Rev’d Dr. Vincent Pizzuto sent on Friday 10 January 2025.
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/11/us/los-angeles-fires-california
5 January 2025
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 84:1-12
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a
Matthew 2:1-12
The Rev. Joe Williams
29 December 2024
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco CA
Isaiah 60:10-62.3
Psalm 147:13-21
Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7
John 1:1-18
“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven” (Phillips Brooks).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E76
Christmas Eve 11:00 p.m. Eucharist
Tuesday 24 December 2024 | Austin Rios’ First Xmas at GC
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96:1-4, 11-13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
What for you is god? By god I mean, your goal, where your life is going. I mean what is most real to you. The answer to this question is not theoretical or abstract. It will determine the entire character and direction of your life. It will dictate how you spend your time and what you think about.
The Rt. Rev. Ausitn Keith Rios, Bishop of California
The Eve of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Isaiah 62:6-12
Psalm 97:1-2, 6-9, 11-12
Titus 3:4-7
Luke 2:8-20
The Eve of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
24 December 2024 - 4 p.m.
A Festival of Lessons and Carols
Some early childhood Christmases in my native Ohio were spent at my aunt's home in Youngstown, where my father was born. His mother, Grandma Mary, was still on this side of heaven and holding forth from the kitchen, bracciole and hot sausages simmering in her pot.
What I remember most after the smells, was the travel. An hour's drive in the snow and ice, my dad's hands flying from the wheel as he issued commentary on the evening, me braced between my younger sisters in adjoining car seats, and my mom pregnant with our next sister, calming us with songs of Judy Collins. All of us were draped with blankets, guarding us from the unreliable heat of an aging Volkswagen Rabbit.
The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene , Canon Pastor
Eucharist, Advent 4, - December 22, 2024 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Micah 5.2-5a
Canticle 15 (Luke 1:46-55)
Hebrews 10.5-10
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
The Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi
Canon Precentor and Director of Interfaith Engagement
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
“Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E75
2 Advent (Year C) 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 8 December 2024
Baruch 5:1-9
Canticle 16 (Luke 1:68-79)
Philippians 1: 3-11
Luke 3:1-6
Pope Pius IX instituted today's Feast of Christ the King, or the Reign of Christ, in a 1925 encyclical, a papal letter sent to the bishops of the Roman Church. The feast and its timing was incorporated broadly in Christian churches -- including ours -- through ecumenical and liturgical movements a few decades later. Even if we dismiss the notion of king as an outmoded overlord, we have taken that identity in Christ in baptism, and by virtue of that, must wrestle with that identity and the sacred principles that gave rise to today. In today's gospel, on the one hand, Pilate is trying Jesus: what have you done? And on the other hand, Jesus is recapitulating the trying question of the gospels: who do you say that I am? The Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi,
Canon Precentor and Director of Interfaith Engagement
The Reign of Christ, Year B:
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
“God we are your children and you love us with a perfect love.”
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E73, P25
26 Pentecost (28B) 11:00 a.m. and 6 p.m. Eucharist
Sunday 17 November 2024 | Stewardship Ingathering Sunday
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Canticle C
Heb. 10:11-14, 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
“[A]nyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has… passed from death to eternal life"(1 Thess. 4).
Sunday 10 November 2024 | Maurice Duruflé Requiem
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E72
Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 130
1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
John 5:24-27
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E71
All Saints Day 11:00 a.m. Baptism
Sunday 3 November 2024
Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
“See I am making all things new… I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 21).
- In three days there will be an election. We have heard about authoritarianism and the Deep State, that this might be the last election we will ever have. We have been told that the United States Department of Justice will seek retribution against political enemies, that doctors will be prosecuted for performing health procedures like abortions or gender transition therapies, that our own armies will be deployed against regular American citizens. We are afraid that our marriages will be declared invalid and that we will be singled out for persecution.
Candidates have said that America’s domestic enemies are more dangerous than our foreign ones. News broadcasters have told us that rather than protecting us from foreign dictators our political leaders admire them. We see signs that the meager efforts we are making to slow down climate change and species extinction may be undone. We have been told that the elections cannot be trusted, that immigrants are in some way unseen threats. We are reminded that the person we choose will alone have power to destroy life on earth by launching nuclear weapons.
There is so much more I could say about this but I don’t need to because we are all getting five text messages a day from politicians who act as if they know us, who talk as if they alone can save us.
In 1965, 70% of Americans said that religion is very important. In our time 45% of Americans agree with this statement. [i] Some may say that we are becoming less spiritual as a society. But one might argue instead that we are less likely to express our spirituality through religious institutions and more likely to invest other parts of our life with ultimate value.
The sociologist Max Weber (1865-1920) had a theory that the evolution of religious life has led us in the modern world to have seven “value spheres” that at times compete with each other. These include: religion, family, politics, economics, art, science and eroticism. Some thinkers today believe that as people participate less in religion they invest spiritual meaning in other spheres, particularly politics.
Philip Gorski writes, “the most important form of sacrality today is arguably “the political.” For the populist right, the sacred is most often “the nation,” or ”Christian nation” or “Hindu Civilization.” For the progressive left, the sacred is more often democracy or social justice... [N]ation and state, party and ideology, race and identity, have become sacred objects of devotion for many.” [ii]
Many of our most secular friends have become missionaries writing letters and visiting distant places trying to inspire people to vote. This makes sense since the political sphere has tremendous power to control taxation, wage nuclear war, curtail climate change, preserve democracy and balance inconceivable levels of wealth inequality.
- In the time of Jesus the Romans mercilessly demanded that subject peoples worship the emperor as a god. The situation seemed hopeless. But according to the Gospel of John, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John goes on, “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him… but to all who received him he gave power to become children of God” (Jn. 1). This light which shone in Jesus still shines today.
The purpose of the Gospel of John is to draw us into a new world, into life in God. He writes about seven signs. The first happens when Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. And the last occurs when Jesus returns to enemy territory in order to bring his friend Lazarus back from the dead.
Jesus narrowly escapes being stoned to death in Judea for saying that, “The Father and I are one” (Jn. 10). Then he gets a message from two sisters that “the one you love is ill.” Jesus’ friends can hardly believe it when he tells them that he is going back to the place where he was almost killed.
The name Lazarus means “God is my help.” Jesus feels so deeply moved by the grief of Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary that he himself weeps. Jesus knows that bringing his friend back to life will lead to his own death. And this is exactly what happens. Later, the authorities reason that Jesus must die because by raising the dead he will inspire the masses who will then provoke the Romans to destroy the temple and their whole culture. High Priest Caiaphas says, “it is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (Jn. 11).
The pivotal moment occurs when Jesus says to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” The point of this is not that Martha’s believing has anything to do with her brother coming back to life. It is that Martha’s faith will help her to see the action of God that is already happening in Jesus.
- And this is how faith is. We trust in God first and then we come to see the world in a completely new way. St. Augustine (354-430) was an African saint born in the fourth century. He calls this faith seeking understanding. We say yes and give our hearts to God. And then God opens our lives to the divine mystery.
St. Augustine helps me to understand these elections and Jesus’ invitation into a deeper reality. In 410 Rome was sacked. Pagans argued that this defeat happened because the gods were punishing the Romans for converting to Christianity. [iii] In response Augustine wrote his book The City of God.
In it Augustine describes two cities the earthly city and the city of God. These are not distinguished by jurisdiction or location. One is not on earth and the other in the skies. Instead, they are two fundamentally different ways of organizing human community. They are distinguished by their love. The earthly city revolves around love of self, the lust for power and domination.
The city of God is characterized by love of God and neighbor. Because God values human freedom we find ourselves in a shared territory that is occupied by citizens of both cities. Now is not a time for separating the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats. We will not experience perfect justice, peace, goodness or beauty in this life. Politicians will always let us down.
In 418 Augustine puts this in another way when he writes to Boniface, the Roman general in charge of North Africa. Boniface wants to impose Christian practices with the sword. Augustine disagrees and writes, “We ought not to want to live ahead of time with only the saints and the righteous.” [iv] In other words we should not imagine that we will achieve the ideal in this world. Politics is the way that we live in the time we have now. We should expect disagreement, compromise, debate and be patient with those who disagree with us.
The message is simple on All Saint’s Day in San Francisco let politics have its place. But it should never become our god. Regardless of who is elected, our God is on the throne. Jesus, through his life and death ushers us into another reality. That light shines through our darkness.
Last week after church I had lunch with our former bishop Bill Swing and Cricket Jones the wife of our longtime dean Alan Jones. Alan died in January and the three of us still look visibly upset when we talk about him together. Hesitantly I asked the two about their most powerful memories of Alan and Cricket’s wedding which took place in France at Chartres Cathedral.
Bishop Swing talked about drawers of vestments from the sixteenth century. Then Cricket described a moment from the service. She and Alan were perched on little chairs in front of the high altar. And as the bishop was going through the prayers she felt as if her little chair rose up into the air by four or five inches. And then she had a sense that all the saints who had ever been there were present with them. In her mind’s eye she could see them standing all around the apse on each other’s shoulders with such deep love. [v]
In three days there will be an election. But as we baptize children into the new life of Christ may the ones we love and all the saints be present with us. Let us have eyes to see that God is making all things new.
[i] “Forty-five percent of Americans say religion is "very important" in their life, with another 26% saying it is "fairly important" and 28% saying it's "not very important."
When Gallup first asked this question in 1965, 70% said religion was very important. That fell to 52% in a 1978 survey, but the percentage ticked up to nearly 60% between 1990 and 2005. Over the past 20 years, a declining share of Americans have said religion is important, dropping below 50% for the first time in 2019.” From, “How Religious Are Americans,” Gallup News, 29 March 2024. https://news.gallup.com/poll/358364/religious-americans.aspx
[ii] Robert Gorski, “Disenchantment of the World” or Fragmentation of the Sacred,” in Robert N. Bellah, Challenging Modernity (NY: Columbia University Press, 2024) 319.
[iii] In his book The City of God Augustine writes that rather than the gods protecting Rome, Rome protected her gods.
[iv] “At the heart of Augustine’s political wisdom is an awareness of what time it is. Late in his life, he counseled Boniface, a Roman general governing the precinct of Africa. In a letter from 418, Augustine addresses Boniface’s frustrations with uprisings and incursions by those who despise the Christian faith. Boniface thinks he knows what the kingdom of God is supposed to look like, and he’s tempted to impose it—to make the kingdom come. Augustine cautions the impatient ruler: “We ought not to want to live ahead of time with only the saints and the righteous.” Trying to “live ahead of time” means imagining we can achieve some ideal embodiment of justice—whether it’s utopia or the kingdom—by imposing our will. Politics, Augustine counsels, demands patience. Politics is the art of forging a life together in the now. The institutions of our republic and the practices of democracy are eroded precisely when we imagine that we can live ahead of time. Political liberalism is accumulated wisdom about how not to live ahead of time.” James K. A. Smith, “Wisdom from Augustine in an Election Year,” The Christian Century, November 2024. https://www.christiancentury.org/features/wisdom-augustine-election-year?check_logged_in=1
[v] The novelist Susanna Clarke in an interview with the New York Times says, ““I feel very strongly that if you could see the world as it really is, if you could get further beyond your ego and the sorts of ways in which we trap ourselves, if you could just see the world beyond, every moment would be miraculous.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/books/susanna-clarke-strange-norrell-sequel-interview.html?campaign_id=69&emc=edit_bk_20241101&instance_id=138448&nl=books®i_id=13508633&segment_id=181999&user_id=f284507f51aad420f13c2727d615ae11
The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 25
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
October 27, 2024
Jesus delivers a hard truth to the young man seeking eternal life: “Sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor and then come follow me.” We shouldn’t be surprised. Jesus’s words are often sharp and difficult, designed to slice through our defenses, excuses and comfortable structures. Why? Because he wants to see us healed, whole and living like beloved community. And he knows the only way we’ll get to that dream is if we reckon with the truth in love.
Holy God so often we feel cut off from you and one another. Help us find our way to healing and hope, so that we can become new again. Amen.
Strikingly beautiful, Maria had deep dark eyes and long black hair. Superficially she seemed jaded, a kind of rebel. But if you took the time to really know her, she had great intelligence, sensitivity and heart. During my junior year of high school we were close friends. She used to talk about what it felt like getting painfully lost in the shuffle after her parents split up, about her resentful mother being left with almost nothing.
In those days divorce was suddenly becoming far more widespread and our society was not prepared. We did not know how to cope with divorce in a humane and grace-filled way. Divorce deeply affects all of us. Perhaps you have gone through a divorce yourself, or maybe it was your parents, your children, a close friend or work colleague. In our society really poor people, the ones who are barely making it, are far more likely to get divorced than wealthy people.
Being truly part of the human family means understanding how hard it can be to sustain a relationship and how much pain we can suffer when it breaks down. Many of us also have an experience of new life and joy on the other side of this suffering.
What does Jesus offer as we try to understand this feature of the human condition? Many preachers shy away from this complex topic and I worry a little about putting words into Jesus’ mouth and a lot about saying something that inadvertently harms you. But I believe that Jesus offers practical and real good news. But like all communication his words need to be interpreted and this requires difficult work. It is worth it because this teaching will lead us to wholeness and new life.
The context matters. Jesus has been teaching his disciples about becoming “servants of all.” [1] In fact he says that the world completely misunderstands servanthood. In Imperial Rome but also today we tend to think of servants as lower, lesser, outsiders compelled to work for those who are greater than they are. We easily slip into thinking that the great ones are those who coerce and control others. But Jesus turns this idea on its head. He tells his friends that serving others, especially vulnerable people, is the key to a meaningful life. He says that the greatest one will be servant of all.
Some Pharisees come to Jesus. The name Pharisee in Aramaic means “the ones who are set apart.” [2] They care intensely about determining what and who is pure. They are right to fear Jesus because he undermines this whole project. For Jesus there is one human family and no one is impure or left out. The Pharisees ask Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” The narrator calls this question a trap. Whether Jesus says yes or no the Pharisees have a plan to condemn him.
Jesus understands that there is no right answer. He also knows what happened after King Herod and his former sister-in-law each divorced their spouses and married each other. John the Baptist criticized their marriage. And this led to his execution by Herod. Rather than trying to set a policy or law on divorce Jesus changes the question. Rather than asking if it is legal to divorce he asks us to consider what God wants for us.
During those times there were ethical disagreements concerning divorce. Some believed that the only justification for divorce was sexual infidelity. Others thought that a husband should be able to divorce his wife for pretty much any reason. According to the Book of Deuteronomy a man can write a certificate of divorce if his wife, “does not please him” or, “because he finds something objectionable about her” (Deut. 24:1-4).
This biblical passage puts all the power in the hands of the husband. It makes divorce the rule rather than an exception to be employed only after all other courses of action have failed. Most important this law endangers the most vulnerable people in society – women and children who could not own property and who depend for their well-being on the generosity of their husband and father. This actually describes the situation of my friend Maria.
Jesus hates just this kind of human suffering. You can almost hear him raise his voice as he says that the reason for a commandment permitting divorce is our “hardness of heart.” But note this. Jesus does not say Moses was wrong. Jesus does not say that the commandment permitting divorce should cease to be a law. Jesus is not forbidding divorce.
Instead he uses hyperbole to make a point. In our reading a few weeks ago Jesus said that, “if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out” (Mk. 9:47). Just as this is not a call for us to pluck out our eyes, Jesus describing remarriage as a kind of adultery does not mean that no one should ever get divorced. In every way Jesus says we are children of God and our actions have lasting effects on other children of God many of whom are far more vulnerable than we are.
Jesus is the same person who teaches us that the law was made for human beings not human beings for the law. Jesus’ point is not to shame people who have already suffered all the effects of a broken relationship. He is not trying to make people stay in a relationship that is abusive or in one that has clearly died. He is not trying to preserve relationships that continue to do damage to the people who are in them.
Instead Jesus is moving our attention from what the law permits to God’s dream for how our relationships could be. Describing this higher picture of marriage Jesus rejects the Pharisees’ approach which only sees the relationship from the perspective of the divorcing husband. In his words here Jesus treats women and men the same (he talks in equal terms about a man and a woman divorcing a spouse).
Jesus paints a picture of what love can become. He quotes the book of Genesis and talks about people leaving their families in order to be joined together. So often in my own life I think about the deep and miraculous truth that “the two shall become one flesh.” Adding to this Jesus says that, “what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Let that sink in for a bit. Imagine two beings so united in purpose and affection that they become like one single entity. Imagine God as the source of our deepest relationships and actively at work in helping them to thrive.
I understand that marriage is not for everyone. Anyone entering into marriage needs to know that even in the best circumstances it can be hard work. Marriage involves renewing the relationship over and over again. Marriage requires wisdom, communication, perseverance, patience, courage, forgiveness and an openness to what is new and what cannot be controlled. It demands not just a commitment to the other person but to the relationship itself. To be strong a marriage requires a community of support like the one gathered here this morning.
Jesus wants us to know that there is more to life than feeling justified by the law and superior to another person. Jesus wants us to strive for goodness, to find the way that we are called to serve. But there are relationships that have become so broken that no matter how hard we try, they cannot be saved. Jesus speaks about this not because we have broken some rule and deserve to be punished, but because it is God’s nature to be present to help us when we are suffering. [3]
I began by sharing my fear of speaking about divorce with you today. I guess I really did not want to be misunderstood on this point. Jesus does not condemn people for being divorced. Fifty years ago Diane, my mother-in-law and one of the women I most admire, went through a divorce with my father-in-law. Because of this the church she grew up in utterly rejected her. For decades she never felt comfortable in a church and I did not talk to her about it. Some of you might remember that magical midnight Christmas mass ten years ago when she joined us.
Delayed by her flight, Diane hesitantly made her way down the center aisle to her pew. In all those years as family we had never worshiped together. In the middle of my sermon, preaching from this pulpit I immediately recognized her. I almost started crying tears of joy because she had come home – loved by God and by you the people who welcomed her.
Our reading today ends as Jesus’ disciples try to keep children from bothering him. Mark writes that Jesus feels “indignant” about this. He says, “Let the children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” Mark writes, “And [Jesus] took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.”
This week I keep thinking of my high school friend Maria and Jesus taking her into his arms and blessing her. I imagine Jesus holding Diane with that smile from Christmas on her face and blessing her. And in my mind’s eye I see all the people who have suffered the effects of difficult marriages and divorce and he is reaching out to embrace and bless us.
[1] Matt Boulton, “One Flesh: Salt’s Commentary for the Twentieth Week after Pentecost, SALT, 1 October 2024. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2018/10/3/one-flesh-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-twentieth-week-after-pentecost
[2] “The appellation “Pharisee” is probably derived from the Aramaic word perishayya which means “the separated one.” Very likely the addresses of Mark’s story would not know that. But from previous narrative they have already learned that the Pharisees maintain a pollution system that separates the world into two realms of the clean and the unclean.” Herman Waetjen, A Reordering of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989) 165.
[3] Canon Edie Weller writes about this in a sermon. She says, “Jesus was a realist. He knew that there are times when we can’t reach or maintain the kind of relationship that God might dream for us. There are times and circumstances which lead to broken relationships, from which – as hard as we might work at it – we cannot recover. Jesus speaks about this not because the death of a marriage is more sinful or worse in some way than other experiences of human brokenness. Rather he speaks about this because he cares about us. God’s grief in the face of our irreconcilable differences stems not from our having broken the rules or failed a divine test, but from God’s response to our experience of such pain.
Edie B. Weller, “Sermon for Sunday October 7, 2018 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 22), St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington. https://saintmarks.org/staff/the-rev-edie-weller/
What does vulnerability have to do with greatness? How is a defenseless child a portrait of God? Our reading from Mark's Gospel this week cuts hard against the grain of our obsessions with performance, perfection, achievement, and superiority. In likening the divine to a child, Jesus invites us to relinquish the deep fears we harbor around our own self-worth and value. At a cultural and political moment rife with harmful notions of "greatness," God lovingly offers us another way forward — a way of precarity and smallness. The question is: will we have the courage to receive it?
“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and to forfeit his life?” (Mk. 7).
Proverbs 1:20-33
Psalm 19
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38
What does it mean to lose our life in order to save it?
“Looking up to heaven [Jesus] and said… “Ephatha,” that is, “Be opened” (Mk. 7).
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E58
16 Pentecost (Proper 18B) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday
8 September 2024, Congregation Sunday
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
Mark 7:24-37
How can we open ourselves to God? When we go beyond the way others experience us, beyond who we think we are, we will encounter God. Today I am going to offer two pictures of this openness the first from Mark’s story of the Syrophoenician mother and the second from the ancient Book of Proverbs.
“Once there were three baby owls: Sarah and Percy and Bill. They lived in a hole in the trunk of a tree with their Owl Mother…” [1] These are the first lines in the children’s picture book Owl Babies. One night the three children wake up and find that their mother has gone.
The older two siblings have theories about where their mother went and wavering confidence that she will return. The youngest one Bill just repeats “I want my mommy.” It is a simple story about growing up, about the difficult task of learning to become separate from our parents. Sweet Alexandra loved owls, animals, babies and the experience of childhood itself. This was her favorite story and the basis for her nickname “Owlexandra” or just plain “Owl.”
It is hard to move gracefully from being a child to adulthood. It is hard to leave behind our childhood especially when we are very well adapted to it. It is hard to care for children in this time of transition. It is hard to be a child, or the friend of a child, who is becoming an adult.
Stories help to guide us as we make our way. Alexandra loved stories like Frozen, Wicked, and Hamilton. Her mother is American and her father is from England so they read quite a variety of stories including those of the British author Enid Blyton (1897-1968). In Five on a Treasure Island the first book in the Famous Five series, Julian, Dick and Anne are on their way to spend their first summer away from their parents, at the seashore home of their uncle and aunt, and their cousin Georgina and her dog Timmy.
“The car suddenly topped a hill – and there was the shining blue sea, calm and smooth in the evening sun…” At the house they meet their aunt for the first time (and they “liked the look of her”). She says, “Welcome to Kirrin [Bay]… Hallo, all of you! It’s lovely to see you… There were kisses all round, and then the children went into the house. They liked it. It felt old and rather mysterious somehow, and the furniture was old and very beautiful.” [2]
These books are filled with secret passageways, hidden treasure, stolen goods, old maps, smugglers, spies and suspicious strangers. But ultimately bravery, perseverance, kindness and loyalty are always rewarded. In the end everything is perfectly resolved and clear. You know where everyone stands. There is no gray area or ambiguity.
You might say that real life is not like this and you would be right. Each of us is a mixture of good and bad. But we need each other to remind us to feed what is good in us every day so that we grow in kindness.
I love the way Alexandra’s parents talk about her as a “gift from God” and uniquely filled with Christmas magic. In London her older sibling asked Father Christmas (or Santa Claus) for a little sister and ten months later she arrived. Alexandra was an angel in our Christmas pageant right here where I am standing. At the age of three she fell in love with the realistic looking babies in the FAO Schwartz store window. She loved children and animals. The Marin Primary motto is “treasuring childhood” and Alexandra did. She participated in theater, sports like cross country. She made art including a painting based on the work of Keith Haring.
One of the greatest treasures in this Cathedral is a triptych that Keith Haring (1958-1990) finished only weeks before his death from AIDS. It shows a mother holding her baby surrounded by joyful angels.
Alexandra knew that the most important question for a child is not what do you want to be when you grow up. It is who do you want to be; or better how do you want to be. Alexandra was empathetic, a thoughtful caregiver who valued kindness above everything else.
This way of being matches the values of this Cathedral where it is not about who is in or out, who is good or evil, who is saved or damned. The style of faith here is not about condemning other people or other religions. It is not overly preoccupied with the sin which is so evident in the world, the cruelty and unkindness that lead to tragedies like a young person’s death.
Instead we believe that God loves everyone without exception. We hold a faith that arises chiefly out of gratitude, out of an experience of nature’s beauty and the simple pleasure of being kind and helping the people who travel along with us. Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart… Blessed are the peacemakers” and we try to be people who build bridges and look for the best in others. We sing “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.” And in the midst of terrible tragedy we remember what a gift our life is.
At the end of the service my friend Luis will sing a poem by the sixteenth century Anglican priest George Herbert. It ends with these words. They are a kind of invitation to God. “Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: Such a Joy, as none can move: Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joys in love.” Love and joy – these are the qualities exemplified by God. They are the possibilities that we realize in our own life.
Jesus does not say much about what happens after we die, about what the poet Mary Oliver calls “that cottage of darkness.” But he does say over and over that God is like a loving parent, an Owl Mother if you will, who always returns, who cares for us as every day of our life as we face the struggles of maturing.
And I imagine heaven as like the opening of an Enid Blyton book, the beginning of summer when suddenly we come across “the shining blue sea, calm and smooth in the evening sun,” and we are welcomed with “kisses all round” into an old house and a new adventure. And we will see again our lovely Owl as a kind of angel filled with kindness and the magic of Christmas.
[1] “Once there were three baby owls: Sarah and Percy and Bill. They lived in a hole in the trunk of a tree with their Owl Mother. The hole had twigs and leaves and owl feathers in it. It was their house.” Martin Waddell, Illustrated by Patrick Benson, Owl Babies (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1992).
[2] Enid Blyton, Five on a Treasure Island Illustrated by Ellen A. Soper (NY: Hatchette Children’s Books, 1997 originally published in 1942), 7-9.
“We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn. 6).
1 Kings 8:(1,6,10-11),22-30,41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69
In the crypt of the basilica in Assisi, there is a shirt made out of hair that once adorned the mortal body of St. Clare. Each time I visited that Umbrian mecca of a kind of sainthood that remains admirable and replicable today—the decision of St. Francis and St. Clare to choose worldly poverty in exchange for spiritual richness—I found myself dwelling on that hair shirt relic. Legend has it that Clare was beautiful and possessed some of the most luxurious golden locks of hair ever seen in the region. And yet because of how she experienced God’s presence in her contemporary St. Francis, who threw off the mantle of his family wealth and stood naked and reborn in front of the local bishop while pledging himself to rebuild God’s church, Clare decided to devote her life to the same Christ—and cut off those golden locks as a sign of her own rebirth in the living God. There were several children of wealthy Italians who lived in the 1200’s, many of whom most likely loved their families and cared for the local populace in admirable ways. But we gather here today in the city of St. Francis, commemorating the feast day of St. Clare, because these two children of 13th century wealthy Italians re-presented the heart of our Christian faith by following Jesus in a radical and life-giving way that transformed their city, their country, and the wider world around them. They let go of what the world believed was necessary for life and incarnated the power of the gospel in their own lives through utter reliance on God and love and service of neighbor. Every time I saw that hair shirt of Clare’s in Assisi, it made me conscious of two things. The first is just how scratchy and awful such a penitential practice must have been. I’m not sure wearing a hair shirt is a practice that would lead me to greater consciousness and trust in Jesus, but I do know that it would lead one to a state of constant discomfort. And the second is that even if a shirt made out of hair—with resonances and reminders of the hair that Clare let go—isn’t the way that may lead me to complete reliance on Jesus, my life’s call is about finding out what will, and about letting only the light and love of God clothe me and flow through me for the continued transformation of the world. We come into the world through God’s grace, “from [our] mother’s wombs, [and so] we shall go [forth] again, naked as [we] came” as the author of Ecclesiastes reminds us. And yet somewhere between the “forceps and the stone” each of us has the opportunity to choose how we will ultimately use the precious gift of our lives. Will we live into the imperial story—that sees worldly wealth as the final goal of human effort and toil, and trample whomever and whatever stands between us and its accumulation? Or will we see the accidental and earned gifts of our lives as tools to employ in the pursuit of the gospel—a gospel that constantly reminds us that our fundamental wealth, security, and influence are found in God and in restored relationships with one another? I stand before you in this magnificent worship space called Grace Cathedral because previous generations of the faithful chose the latter over the former. And yet, just like us gathered here today, the majority of our ancestors struggled mightily with the dual pull of the world and the gospel on their lives. There is something beautiful and enviable about the extreme choices Clare and Francis made—to renounce all worldly possessions and give themselves entirely to God. Perhaps that is the way that lies before some of us gathered here today. But regardless of whether we go all in on the gospel in the exact way they did, each of us are called to go all in on the gospel in our time and in our own way. Whatever method or practice leads us there, all of us must be gravitating toward the realization of a beloved and restored community—on the micro and macro levels. Regardless of our liturgical preferences and proclivities, all of us must be about authentic forms of worship that connect the interior life of our churches with the exterior needs and hopes of our neighborhoods. And no matter the contours of the time in which we live, the specific oppositions we may face individually or communally, nor the strength of the temptation to conflate imperial religion with the living gospel, all of us are called to embrace our unique membership in the larger Body of Christ and become channels of blessing and healing in this precious life we share. My deepest prayer today is that God will grant me the grace to live this calling out among you as your bishop, and that God will likewise grant us all the grace to empower and support one another as we pursue this joyful and difficult work together. As we discern God’s vision together in the months and years ahead, may the same Spirit that guided our forebears Francis and Clare be manifest among us, and may we grow in trust of the one God who clothes us in righteousness, anoints our head with oil, and equips us with the tools we need to see the vision realized on earth as it is in heaven. To the All in All, who brings us unburdened, bare, and free into this life and brings us home one day in the same way, be all honor, glory, power and dominion, now and forevermore. Amen.
“[B]e kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E46 12 Pentecost (Proper 14) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 11 August 2024
1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6-35, 41-51
“Why is life sacred? Because we experience it within ourselves as something we have neither posited nor willed, as something that passes through us without ourselves as its cause – we can only be and do anything whatsoever because we are carried by it.”
“Dark and cheerless is the morn unaccompanied by thee; joyless is the day’s return till thy mercy’s beams I see, till they inward light impart, glad my eyes and warm my heart.”
Why practice religion? Last week a New York Times journalist asked me a question I frequently hear from my neighbors. “Is religion dying out?” People raising this topic often cite statistics showing a decline in religious participation. Indeed more people went to church in the 1950’s and 1960’s than at any other time in our country’s history. We were a much less diverse country in those days and we were facing the aftermath of the most destructive war in all history. Perhaps there is an ebb and flow when it comes to expressing our spirituality.
I always answer by saying that human beings are spiritual beings and we always will be. We are not going to evolve or grow out of religion. We will never stop asking questions like “where did I come from? How should I dedicate my time and energy? What happens after we die?” We are symbolic creatures who depend on constructing meaning for our social lives and for our individual survival. Despair kills us. The twentieth century philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) calls humans “Dasein” or “being.” He means we are the being for whom being (that is, our very existence), is a problem.
Social scientists tell us that religious people are less depressed and lonely (they have more social connections). They are healthier and live longer. They report being happier. Columbia researcher Lisa Miller points out that children who have a positive active relationship to spirituality are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances, 60% less like to be depressed as teenagers and 80% less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex.
This is probably not the reason to become religious. Religion is not about believing the unbelievable. At heart religions share something in common: the idea that you are not the center. Religions evolved with human beings who long for a connection to God and cannot be satisfied by anything else. I think we could spend a year talking about this but let me share two immediate responses to the question “why practice a religion,” one primarily from the head and the other from the heart.
- Why religion? Because, “Be it life or death, we crave only reality.” Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862) wrote this in his book Walden in a section about our deep desire to fathom the depths of “opinion and prejudice, and tradition and delusion” so that we might reach the rock solid bottom “which we can call reality.” True religion involves opening to reality, becoming aware of the extraordinary mystery both of the world and our inner life.
Ed Yong wrote one of my favorite new books. It is called An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms around us. He begins by asking the reader to imagine an elephant in a room, not a metaphorical “weighty issue” sort of elephant but an actual elephant in a room the size of a high school gymnasium. Now imagine a mouse surrying in with a robin hopping along beside it. An owl sits on a beam and a bat hangs from the ceiling. A rattlesnake slithers on the floor. A spider rests in its web with a mosquito and a bumblebee sitting on a potted sunflower… and a woman named Rebecca who loves animals.
They are all in the same room, but they have entirely different sensory experiences of the same space. Certain animals can see ultraviolet shades that are invisible to us. Mosquitos smell carbon dioxide. Snakes sense infrared radiation coming from warm objects. Ticks detect body heat from thirteen feet away. The robin feels the earth’s magnetic field. Tiny insects make extraordinary sounds that vibrate through plants. When a fish swims it leaves behind a hydrodynamic wake, a “trail of swirling water.” Did you know that harbor seals can detect this with their whiskers and follow a herring from up to about 200 yards away? No one knew this before the year 2001.
There are whole new forms of sensing the world that human beings are only just discovering. We can barely imagine the experience that other creatures are having. I love the word that describes this. It is Umwelt, the German word for environment. But in this case it means the perceptual world of each creature. The ability of our eyes to see details for instance makes us almost entirely unique among all animals other than eagles and vultures. Our Umwelt is predominantly visual one.
My point is that we encounter truth through symbols which lie deep in our subconscious and areshared in our culture. You might call this way of seeing a kind of unavoidable mythological Umwelt. Our Umwelt determines what we think about loyalty, family, economic growth, impurity, justice, identity, childhood, politics, duty, fairness and nationality. This worldviewdirects us as we try to live a good life.
Why religion? Because we are unfinished creatures made more complete by God and each other. Religion is a way of studying, interpreting, shaping and ultimately embodying values. Participating in religion means more consciously opening ourselves to other people. This includes the diverse people in this room but also those who came before us in history who loved God and wrote hymns, prayers and theologies. Together we pray and listen to the promptings of God’s spirit.
During the terrible years of apartheid in South Africa it was dangerous for Desmond Tutu to preach. But this did not stop him. He said “You are love.” “You are the body of Christ that receives the sacraments in order to become more fully the mystical embodiment of love.” God loves us so that we can love another.
- Why religion? Because of our longing for God and God’s longing for us. Religion is how we meet God. It is how we receive help from beyond ourselves. In her memoir the historian Elaine Pagels writes about the way her rationalist parents dismissed religion as something only for uneducated people, as unscientific. But this also led them in an extreme way to avoid thinking or talking about suffering and death.
Mark Twain joked, “I know that everyone dies, but I always thought an exception would be made in my case.” This was how they existed and it left them unprepared for life.
Pagels describes having difficulty getting pregnant and then participating in a kind of fertility ritual. Sitting in a candlelit circle a thought entered her mind, “Are you willing to be a channel?” She answered “Yes!” and soon became pregnant. Her son Mark was born with a hole in his heart that had to be repaired by surgery when he was one year old.
The night before the surgery she was startled by an experience that could have been a dream although she felt like she was awake. An inhuman male presence came near threatening to kill her son. She wanted to run but stood her ground. The threatening presence returned twice more. The last time she felt like she could not stand another moment. She spoke the name, “Jesus Christ” and the dangerous being fled and she was no longer afraid.
Four years later Mark was in Kindergarten when one evening she went into his room to sing him to sleep. Instead he hugged her with his arms around her neck and said, “I’ll love you all my life, and all my death.” The next day at the doctor’s office when they were drawing blood he stiffened and his eyes rolled up. She sensed that the life had left his body, that their connection was breaking. And she lost consciousness.
Suddenly Pagels seemed, “to be in a brilliant place, vividly green with golden light.” Her husband came in and she felt as if she could feel her son’s presence there near the ceiling of the room. The cardiologist came in to say, “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but your son’s heart stopped and it is beating again.” Pagels had the impression that the boy had heard his parents talking and gone back to his body only to discover it couldn’t sustain his life.
The boy died and Pagels writes, “Strangely, I also sensed that he’d felt a burst of joy and relief to leave his exhausted body. Before that moment, I’d taken for granted what I’d learned, that death was the end, any thought of surviving death only fantasy. Although that may be true, what I experienced that day challenged that assumption. I was astonished, seeming to sense that Mark was all right, wherever he was, and that he was somewhere.”
The tragedy deepened terribly a year later when the one person Pagels’ depended on most, her beloved husband fell to his death in a climbing accident. Her parents did not visit when her son was born, or when he had open-heart surgery or when he died or for her husband’s funeral. They stayed away from suffering. She called it a “pattern of oblivion.”
Elaine Pagels studied ancient gnostic literature written after the Bible was finished. She quotesthe Gospel of Thomas which says, “the kingdom of God is within you, and outside of you. When you come to know yourselves then… you will know that you are children of God.”
Pagels concludes writing, “the kingdom of God is not an actual place… or an event expected in human time. Instead, it’s a state of being that we may enter when we come to know who we are, and come to know God as the source of our being… The “good news” is not only about Jesus, it’s about every one of us. While we ordinarily identify ourselves by specifying how we differ, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity… recognizing that we are “children of God” requires us to see how we are the same – members… of the same family… [T]he “image of God,” the divine light given in creation, is hidden deep within each one of us, linking our fragile, limited selves to their divine source.”
Why religion? Because in the face of the great mystery of our life we long for reality. We reach beyond our Umwelt to learn from each other. Why religion? Because beyond even the “pattern of oblivion” God meets us here where we receive help from beyond ourselves.
We gather today to celebrate with great joy the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women in The Episcopal Church. And precisely because of our joy, we keep in mind the long road that led to this occasion, the unnumbered women and men who were told they were separating themselves from the church by faithfully challenging it. On the Feast of Mary Magdalene, we look to her example. The commission of Mary Magdalene — a woman and collaborator in ministry united to the great High Priest — shows us that what for nearly 2000 years had been impossible for the church was in every way a possibility, a choice for Jesus.
Eucharist, St. Mary Magdalene: Judith 9:1,11-14 • Psalm 42:1-7• 2 Corinthians 5:14-18 • John 20:11-18
Mark called it a Gospel, what he wove from sayings and parables of Jesus, scenes from Jesus’ ministry, and a Passion narrative. He set the Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan as the beginning and ended it with the women fleeing an empty tomb in fear, and charged all his scenes energetically with feeling-rich questions in conversations among Jesus, the apostles and all the other characters. The questions Mark gives hisGospel characters invite us to notice a wonder at the range of questions in our own lives. How might our heartfelt questions from the most wonderful to the most terrible, open us to curiosity, grace and hope?
As The book of Common Prayer offers, we pray:
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. [1] Amen.
“Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4).
1 Samuel 8:4-11, 16-20
Psalm 138
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Mark 3:20-35
The Rev. Miguel Bustos
Manager for Racial Reconciliation and Justice, The Episcopal Church
“O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth."
1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
2 Corinthians 4:5-12
Mark 2:23-3:6
- Near the end of The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis’ children’s book about the apocalypse, the great Lion stands before a massive closed door which seems to have nothing behind its doorframe. He has just presented a bountiful banquet to a crowd of bickering dwarfs. But they are not able to see or experience it – as they eat the delicious pies, wines and ice creams, they think they are eating old hay, wilted cabbage leaves and putrid water. They complain and fight each other. One says, “the Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”
The Lion explains to the children with him that the dwarfs, “will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.” Then the Lion goes to the door and roars so loudly it could shake the stars. He calls, “Now it is time!” Time! Time! And the door to another world flies open.[1]
Today I am talking about the sabbath. We will think about what that word means, how ancient Hebrews practiced the sabbath, what questions it raised for them and for us today. But the simple thing I want to express is the idea that of the sabbath as a kind of doorway into another world. We walk through the sabbath into a world which constantly changes our experience of this one, a world which helps us to see what is real and what is a distraction and what is an illusion.
Trinity Sunday
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
Today, question of the Nicene Creed, its use and revision is only slightly less charged than it was 1600 years ago. That we continue to profess our faith in the Trinity with the Nicene Creed is for some is an unassailable article of truth which binds us to Christians across time and tradition, and for others, it is partial, patriarchal, and uninspiring. Following the scholarship of Geoffrey Wainwright, let’s lightly survey the rich liturgical and sacramental tradition which precedes the doctrine expressed in the Nicene Creed and consider its import for the issues of our own day.
Pentecost Day
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
We gather in homage to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, revealed in various forms and as the Spirit of Truth. Today's festival is also a festival of justice, one that may confound our expectations and upend our sense of comfort. Building common understanding means designing our lives, personal and collective in such a way that we who have much come to reflect that the truth that everything we are and have is a gift from God,
And so intentionally conserve a portion of what is "ours," for the last and the least. This commitment aligns with Anglican theology, urging compassion and care for all. And it is grounded in our baptism covenant, which renew today in faith and and where we invoke the Spirit's guidance for a just and peaceful community.
Jesus prayed, “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves” (Jn. 17).
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19
Friendship According to Aristotle and Jesus
- “We seek one mystery, God, with another mystery, ourselves. We are mysterious to ourselves because God’s mystery is in us.” [i] Gary Wills wrote these words about the impossibility of fully comprehending God. Still, we can draw closer to the Holy One. I am grateful for friends who help me see our Father in new ways.
This week my friend Norwood Pratt sent me an article which begins with a poem by Li Bai (701-762). According to legend he died in the year 762 drunkenly trying to embrace the moon’s reflection in the Yangtze River. Li Bai writes, “The birds have vanished from the sky. / Now the last cloud drains away // We sit together, the mountain and me, / until only the mountain remains.” [ii] For me this expresses the feeling of unity with God that comes to me in prayer.
This poet was one of many inspirations for a modern Chinese American poet named Li-Young Lee (1957-). Lee’s father immigrated to the United States and served as a Presbyterian pastor at an all-white church in western Pennsylvania. Lee feels fascinated by infinity and eternity. He writes this poem about the “Ultimate Being, Tao or God” as the beloved one, the darling. Each of us in the uniqueness of our nature and experience has a different experience of holiness.
He writes, “My friend and I are in love with the same woman… I’d write a song about her. I wish I could sing. I’d sing about her. / I wish I could write a poem. / Every line would be about her. / Instead, I listen to my friend speak / about this woman we both love, / and I think of all the ways she is unlike / anything he says about her and unlike / everything else in the world.” [iii]
These two poets write about something that cannot easily be expressed, our deepest desire to be united with God. Jesus also speaks about this in the Gospel of John, in his last instructions to the disciples and then in his passionate prayer for them, and for us. In his last words Jesus describes the mystery of God and our existence using a surprising metaphor. At the center of all things lies our experience of friendship.
On Mother’s Day when we celebrate the sacrifices associated with love I want to think more with you about friendship and God. To understand the uniqueness of Jesus’ teaching, it helps to see how another great historical thinker understood this subject.
- Long before Jesus’ birth the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) studied at Plato’s school in Athens (from the age of 17 to 37). After this Aristotle became the tutor of Alexander the Great and founded a prominent library that he used as the basis for his thought. Scholars estimate that about a third of what Aristotle wrote has survived. He had a huge effect on the western understanding of nature. He also especially influenced the thirteenth century theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and therefore modern Roman Catholic approaches to Christian thought.
For Aristotle God is eternal, non-material, unchanging and perfect. He famously describes God as the unmoved mover existing outside of the world and setting it into motion. Because everything seeks divine perfection this God is responsible for all change that continues to happen in the universe. We experience a world of particular things but God knows the universal ideas behind them (or before them). For Aristotle God is pure thought, eternally contemplating himself. God is the telos, the goal or end of all things. [iv]
Aristotle begins his book Nicomachean Ethics by observing that “Happiness… is the End at which all actions aim.” [v] Everything we do ultimately can be traced back to our desire for happiness and the purpose of Aristotle’s book is to help the reader to attain this goal. Happiness comes from having particular virtues, that is habitual ways of acting and seeking pleasure. These include: courage, temperance, generosity, patience. In our interactions with others we use social virtues including: amiability, sincerity, wit. Justice is the overarching virtue that encompasses all the others.
Aristotle writes that there are three kinds of friendships. The first is based on usefulness, the second on pleasure. Because these are based on superficial qualities they generally do not last long. The final and best form of friendship for him is based on strength of character. These friends do not love each other for what they can gain but because they admire each other’s character. Aristotle believes that this almost always this happens between equals although sometimes one sees it in the relation between fathers and sons (I take this to mean between parents and children).
Famous for describing human beings as the political animal, Aristotle points out that we can only accomplish great things through cooperation. Institutions and every human group rely on friendly feelings to be effective. Friendship is key to what makes human beings effective, and for that matter, human. Finally, Aristotle believes that although each person should be self-sufficient, friendship is important for a good life.
- The Greek word for Gospel, that particular form of literature which tells the story of Jesus, is euangelion. We might forget that this word means good news until we get a sense for the far more radical picture of God and friendship that Jesus teaches. For me, one of the defining and unique features of Christianity as a religion comes from Jesus’ insistence that our relation to God is like a child to a loving father. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Jesus clarifies this picture of God in his story of the Prodigal Son who goes away and squanders his wealth in a kind of first century Las Vegas. In the son’s destitution he returns home and as he crests the hill, his father “filled with compassion,” hikes up his robes and runs to hug and kiss him.
Jesus does not just use words but physical gestures to show what a friend is. In today’s gospel Jesus washes his friends’ feet before eats his last meal with them. The King James Version says, “there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (Jn. 13:23). [vi] Imagine Jesus, in the actual embrace of his beloved friend, telling us who God is.
Jesus explicitly says I do not call you servants but friends (Jn. 15). A servant does not know what the master is doing but a friend does. And you know that the greatest commandment is to love one another. Later in prayer he begs God to protect us from the world, “so that [we] may have [his] joy made complete in [ourselves]” (Jn. 17).
- Gregory of Nyssa (c. 332-395) was born ten years after the First Council of Nicaea and attended the First Council of Constantinople. He writes about how so many ordinary people were arguing about doctrine, “If in this city you ask anyone for change, he will discuss with you whether the Son was begotten or unbegotten. If you ask about the quality of the bread you will receive the answer, “The father is the greater and the Son is lesser.’ If you suggest a bath is desirable you will be told, ‘There was nothing before the Son was created.’” [vii]
Gregory with his friends Basil and Gregory Nazianzus wondered what description of Jesus would lead to faith rather than just argument. [viii] Gregory of Nyssa came to believe that the image of God is only fully displayed when every human person is included. [ix] In his final book Life of Moses Gregory responds to a letter from a younger friend who seeks counsel on “the perfect life.” [x]
Gregory writes that Moses exemplifies this more than all others because Moses is a friend to God. True perfection is not bargaining with, pleading, tricking, manipulating, fearing God. It is not avoiding a wicked life out of fear of punishment. It is not to do good because we hope for some reward, as if we are cashing in on the virtuous life through a business contract.
Gregory closes with these words to his young admirer, “we regard falling from God’s friendship as the only dreadful thing… and we consider becoming God’s friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This… is the perfection of life. As your understanding is lifted up to what is magnificent and divine, whatever you may find… will certainly be for the common benefit in Christ Jesus.” [xi]
On Thursday night I was speaking to Paul Fromberg the Rector of St. Gregory’s church about this and he mentioned a sophisticated woman who became a Christian in his church. In short she moved from Aristotle’s view of friendship among superior equals to Jesus’ view. She said, “Because I go to church I can have real affection for people who annoy the shit out of me. My affection is no longer just based on affinity.” [xii]
- I have been thoroughly transformed by Jesus’ idea of friendship. My life has become full of Jesus’ friends, full of people who I never would have met had I followed Aristotle’s advice. Together we know that in Christ unity does not have to mean uniformity.
Before I close let me tell you about one person who I met at Christ Church in Los Altos. Even by the time I met her Alice Larse was only a few years away from being a great-grandmother. She and her husband George had grown up together in Washington State. He had been an engineer and she nursed him through his death from Alzheimer’s disease. Some of my favorite memories come from the frequent summer pool parties she would have for our youth groups. She must have been in her sixties when she started a “Alice’s Stick Cookies Company.” Heidi and I saw them in a store last week!
At Christ Church we had a rotating homeless shelter and there were several times when Alice, as a widow living by herself, had various guests stay at her house. When the church was divided about whether or not to start a school she quickly volunteered to serve as senior warden. She was not sentimental. She was thoroughly practical. She was humble. She got things done… but with a great sense of humor.
There was no outward indication that she was really a saint. I missed her funeral two weeks ago because of responsibilities here. I never really had the chance to say goodbye but I know that one day we will be together in God. Grace Cathedral has hundreds of saints just like her who I have learned to love in a similar way.
Ram Dass was a dear friend of our former Dean Alan Jones. He used to say, “The name of the game we are in is called ‘Being at one with the Beloved.’ [xiii] The Medieval mystic Julian of Norwich writes that God possesses, “a love-longing to have us all together, wholly in himself for his delight; for we are not now wholly in him as we shall be…” She says that you and I are Jesus’ joy and bliss. [xiv]
We seek one mystery, God, with another mystery, ourselves. We are mysterious to ourselves because God’s mystery is in us.” [xv] In a world where friendship can seem to be only for utility or pleasure I pray that like Jesus, you will be blessed with many friends, that you find perfection of life and even become friends with God.
[i] Gary Wills, Saint Augustine (NY: Viking, 1999) xii.
[ii] Li Bai, “Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain,” tr. Sam Hamill, Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese, (Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2000). About 1000 poems attributed to Li still exist. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48711/zazen-on-ching-ting-mountain
[iii] Ed Simon, “There’s Nothing in the World Smaller than the Universe: In The Invention of the Darling, Li-Young Lee presents divinity as spirit and matter, profound and quotidian, sacred and profane,” Poetry Foundation. This article quotes, “The Invention of the Darling.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/162572/theres-nothing-in-the-world-smaller-than-the-universe
[iv] More from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Aristotle made God passively responsible for change in the world in the sense that all things seek divine perfection. God imbues all things with order and purpose, both of which can be discovered and point to his (or its) divine existence. From those contingent things we come to know universals, whereas God knows universals prior to their existence in things. God, the highest being (though not a loving being), engages in perfect contemplation of the most worthy object, which is himself. He is thus unaware of the world and cares nothing for it, being an unmoved mover. God as pure form is wholly immaterial, and as perfect he is unchanging since he cannot become more perfect. This perfect and immutable God is therefore the apex of being and knowledge. God must be eternal. That is because time is eternal, and since there can be no time without change, change must be eternal. And for change to be eternal the cause of change-the unmoved mover-must also be eternal. To be eternal God must also be immaterial since only immaterial things are immune from change. Additionally, as an immaterial being, God is not extended in space.” https://iep.utm.edu/god-west/
[v] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library vol. XIX (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) 30-1.
[vi] h™n aÓnakei÷menoß ei–ß e˙k tw◊n maqhtw◊n aujtouv e˙n twˆ◊ ko/lpwˆ touv ∆Ihsouv, o§n hjga¿pa oJ ∆Ihsouvß (John 13:23). I don’t understand why the NRSV translation translate this as “next to him” I think that Herman Waetjen regards “in Jesus’ bosom” as correct. Herman Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple: A Work in Two Editions (NY: T&T Clark, 2005) 334.
[vii] Margaret Ruth Miles, The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 105.
[viii] Ibid., 108.
[ix] From Jesse Hake, “An Intro to Saint Gregory of Nyssa and his Last Work: The Life of Moses,” 28 July 2022: https://www.theophaneia.org/an-intro-to-saint-gregory-of-nyssa-and-his-last-work-the-life-of-moses/ “For example, Gregory says that the image of God is only fully displayed when every human person is included, so that the reference in Genesis to making humanity in God’s image is actually a reference to all of humanity as one body (which is ultimately the body of Jesus Christ that is also revealed at the end of time):
In the Divine foreknowledge and power all humanity is included in the first creation. …The entire plenitude of humanity was included by the God of all, by His power of foreknowledge, as it were in one body, and …this is what the text teaches us which says, God created man, in the image of God created He him. For the image …extends equally to all the race. …The Image of God, which we behold in universal humanity, had its consummation then. …He saw, Who knows all things even before they be, comprehending them in His knowledge, how great in number humanity will be in the sum of its individuals. …For when …the full complement of human nature has reached the limit of the pre-determined measure, because there is no longer anything to be made up in the way of increase to the number of souls, [Paul] teaches us that the change in existing things will take place in an instant of time. [And Paul gives to] that limit of time which has no parts or extension the names of a moment and the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).”
[x] Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson, “Preface” by John Myendorff (NY: Paulist Press, 1978) 29.
[xi] Ibid., 137.
[xii] Paul Fromberg conversation at One Market, Thursday 9 May 2024.
[xiii] Alan Jones, Living the Truth (Boston, MA: Cowley Publications, 2000) 53.
[xiv] Quoted in Isaac S. Villegas, “Christian Theology is a Love Story,” The Christian Century, 25 April 2018. https://www.christiancentury.org/lectionary/may-13-easter-7b-john-17-6-19?code=kHQx7M4MqgBLOUfbwRkc&utm_source=Christian+Century+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1ccba0cb63-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2024-05-06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
[xv] Gary Wills, Saint Augustine (NY: Viking, 1999) xii.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E26
5 Easter (Year B) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 28 April 2024 | Earth Day
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
“Mysterious God we have lost our home. We are wandering. Help us to hear your call and find ourselves again in you. Amen."
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In wild places I have heard the voice of God... From the time beyond human remembering there existed an island called by the first people Limuw. Every spring fantastic cumulous clouds raced over orange and yellow flower-covered mountain slopes. The fast moving streams, canyons, prairies, oak woodlands, cobbled beaches, tidepools and white foamy waters teamed with life. Thousands of birds nested on the cliffs among the waterfalls. But something was missing. And so Hutash, the name for the Spirit of the Earth, planted a new kind of seed. From these, the ground put forth the first people and the island was complete. Thus begins a story perhaps older than human writing told by people known today as the Chumash. You may know this place as Santa Cruz Island. It is the largest island in California and lies in the archipelago off the coast of Santa Barbara. “The Rainbow Bridge” story goes on. Hutash taught the people how to take care of themselves and their island home. For many years they thrived and multiplied until Limuw became too crowded. Then Kakanupmawa, the mystery behind the sun, conferred with Hutash and they agreed that the people needed a bigger place. So they gathered them on the mountain peak and caused a rainbow to stretch over the sea to a broader land. Some of the people easily crossed over. But others became distracted and dizzied by the waters far below them. They fell from the rainbow bridge into the ocean waters where they were transformed into dolphins. In wild places I have heard the voice of God. When dolphins join me as I surf at Ocean Beach my heart expands with ecstatic joy. It always feels like such a holy encounter. But not only does the story concern the deep kinship between dolphins and humans, some believe it might even be about sea level changes that are part of the geologic record. At the end of the last ice age when the sea level was about 400 feet lower the four channel islands were joined together. As the seas rose, the population that the four separate islands could support decreased forcing people to move to the mainland. Rosanna Xia tells this story in her book California Against the Sea because she hopes that the massive rise in the sea level could be an opportunity for human beings to mend their relationship with the ocean and the rest of the earth. During the last one hundred years the sea has risen by nine inches. Before the end of our century in the lifetime of the youngest people here, the sea will probably rise by six to seven feet. Human beings caused and continue to produce a catastrophic change in the composition of our atmosphere. Almost one third of the carbon dioxide released by human beings since the Industrial Revolution and more than 90% of the resulting heat has been absorbed by our oceans. Carbon dioxide mixing with ocean water causes a chemical reaction that increases the acidity of the seas. The oceans are absorbing the heat equivalent of seven Hiroshima bombs detonating every second. We are the first generation to experience the effects of climate change and the last generation that can make a substantially different course possible. We know this but don’t really comprehend it. It’s hard to be continuously conscious of such a danger, and of such a grave responsibility.
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In the face of our situation Jesus gives us very good news. During the last weeks of Easter our readings show us how to live in intimacy with God. Today’s gospel comes from the last meal Jesus shares with his friends before being killed. Imagine the tangible fear in that room as he prepares them for his departure from this world. It must have been like a last meal at San Quentin Prison before a prisoner is executed. Thomas says, “How can we know the way?” Jesus responds with the last of seven “I am” statements. Earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I am…” “the bread of life” (6:35), “the light of the world” (8:12), “the door” (10:7), “the Good Shepherd” (10:11). And today he says, “I am the true vine and my father is the vinegrower” (Jn. 15). Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” He uses the image of the vine, organic and integrally connected, to prepare his friends for his death. “I am the vine and you are the branches,” he says. It is almost as if he is reassuring them, “Death will not separate us. I will not be leaving you. We will become even more intimately connected. Do not be afraid.” Jesus goes on. “You will see evidence of our connection. Look at your life and the lives of those who follow me and see the richness of this fruit.” I do not read this as a threat. It is not “stay with me or you will wither and perish.” It is the promise that we do not need to worry, that we are in this together. Jesus is saying our companionship will be even closer than we can imagine. We walk side by side today. In the future we will be abide in Jesus and bring good news to the world. Other examples of this persist in the Bible. In Genesis, God breathes spirit into us and sustains our life. In Galatians, Paul writes, “It is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me.” The Book of Acts describes God as the one, “in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” One might even say that the culmination of Jesus’ teaching is about abiding in God. Our goal is not simply to follow Jesus, or to convince others to, or even primarily to obey what he taught. We live in Jesus as he lives in us. This experience of intimacy lies at the heart of my faith and of my understanding of the earth. In wild places I have heard the voice of God.
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As a student of religion I carefully studied the connection between the spirit of God and the natural world. Many of us here have experienced a kind of transcendence in nature, a moment when everything changes, when the cosmos seems clear. These encounters show that our picture of God is too small. When we begin to glimpse how interrelated all life is, we cannot go back to pretending that one individual, or group, or nation, or species can thrive alone. Religion stops being another form of tribalism and becomes an opening in our hearts to wonder and gratitude and love. Let me talk about two people whose lives were changed in this way by meeting God in nature. As a young man Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) served as the minister of the Second Church of Boston (Unitarian). It was founded in 1650, almost exactly 200 years before Grace Cathedral. He would make pastoral visits to Revolutionary War veterans and just did not know what to say. The prospect of writing a sermon every week for the rest of his life scared him. Philosophically he was not sure what it meant to consecrate bread and wine during communion services. Then the wife who he simply adored died at the age of twenty from tuberculosis and his life fell apart. He was inconsolable. He resigned his pastorate, sold all his household furniture and departed on Christmas Day across the gray expanse of the North Atlantic with the hope that he might find himself. In 1836 Emerson published what he discovered in a short book called Nature. Feeling confined and limited by tradition and the past, Emerson stopped believing in them. He gave up faith in the promise that we could learn about what really matters from someone else. Instead he believed that we should experience God firsthand and that “Nature is a symbol of spirit. He writes, “Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear… In the woods, we return to reason and faith… all mean egotism vanishes… the currents of Universal Being circulate though me; I am part or parcel of God.” Later he writes, “behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present… the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old.” Emerson encouraged his young friend Henry David Thoreau to begin keeping a journal and later allowed him to build a cabin on his land by the shore of Walden Pond. Generations later in 1975 a 29 year old woman after finishing her master’s thesis on Thoreau won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in a book recording her own encounter of nature and spirit. Her name was Annie Dillard and the memoir about living along a creek in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains was called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Without flinching Dillard sees the frightening vastness of the void, the uncountable number of swarming insects. She writes about the water bug injecting poison that liquifies its prey. Quoting Pascal and Einstein, Annie Dillard wonders if our modern understanding of God has spread, “as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way that we can only feel blindly of its hem.” In this theological and liturgical book (it follows the Christian year into Advent), Dillard regards the great beauty of this world as grace, as a gift from God. At the end she concludes, “Do you think you will keep your life, or anything else you love? But no... You see the needs of your own spirit met whenever you have asked… You see the creatures die, and you know that you will die. And one day it occurs to you that you must not need life… I think that the dying pray at the last not “please,” but “thank you,” as a guest thanks his host at the door… Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret and holy and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see.” The seas are rising. How can we know the way? God speaks to us through nature – often in ways that we do not expect, sometimes in ways that are not altogether comfortable for us. But we will not hear if we do not listen. Let us mend our relation to the earth, and build a bridge to a more humane civilization. Jesus, the true vine, reminds us that at the core of every being is the power to love. We will never be truly isolated or alone. He will always abide in us. In wild places I have heard the voice of God.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E23
4 Easter (Year B) 8:30 a.m. & 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 21 April 2024 Good Shepherd Sunday
Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want” (Psalm 23).
When I was at Harvard, on the advice of a friend who is a nun, I decided to take a leadership course at the Kennedy School of Government. My fellow classmates came from twenty-six countries and included CEO’s, a judge, a District Attorney, an army general, a state senator, the founder of an investment bank, the co-founder of a Political Action Committee, an ambassador, a university dean, the head administrator for airports in Israel, etc.
Our teacher Ronald Heifetz changed who I am. He spoke with uncanny and absolutely non-defensive frankness. He had an MD, practiced as a surgeon, and had previously taught at Harvard Medical School. He was a cello virtuoso who had studied under Gregor Piatagorsky and music was central to his understanding of leadership. [i]
This week I read all my class notes – everything from doodles that spelled my wife’s Hawaiian name in Greek letters to quotes with three stars in the margin (such as, “in disagreements the first value we lose sight of is the ability to be curious”). [ii] The syllabus says directly that the course’s goal is, “to increase one’s capacity to sustain the demands of leadership.” It was perfect preparation for the rest of my life.
On the first day Heifetz said, “if you are going through a difficult time I strongly urge you not to take this course.” He was right. This was not an ordinary lecture class but a seemingly entirely improvised discussion. Heifetz would start by saying something like, “What do we want to address today?” It felt strangely dangerous. Nothing was going to come easy or be handed to us on a silver platter. We talked about the feeling in class and agreed it was tense.
At one point in the early lectures Heifetz just stopped being an authority figure for a while. In the resulting chaos we learned how much we all crave authority and guiding norms. It felt more like a Werner Erhard seminar than a Harvard lecture. Heifetz might not always say it directly but he regards leadership above all as a spiritual practice. The motivations for good leadership are spiritual. The character and the skills that we need to develop for leadership are spiritual. To be effective we have to recognize forces that were previously invisible to us and experience the world with intuition and based on a real understanding of ourselves. Leadership success requires curiosity, compassion, wisdom, honesty, courage, humility, self-knowledge and the right balance between detachment and passion.
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus faces accusers who seek to kill him. He uses the metaphor of a leader as a good shepherd. This idea was already ancient in his time and mentioned in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Psalms. You might be thinking, “No one listens to me since I retired,” or, “I’m at the lowest level in my company, or I’m just a kid, what could leadership possibly have to do with me?”
Heifetz makes a central distinction between authority and leadership. Authority comes from one’s institutional standing and involves managing people’s expectations. [iii] Jesus was not the Roman governor or the high priest. He did not have this authority.
Leadership on the other hand means mobilizing resources to make progress on difficult problems. [iv] In many instances people exercise more powerful leadership without having formal authority than with it. Jesus did. And make no mistake Jesus expects each of us to act as leaders regardless of our formal or informal authority. We exist to glorify God and to help solve the problems we encounter. For homework I invite you this week to consciously exercise leadership that is inspired by Jesus.
- Adaptive Challenges. This morning I am going to do the opposite of what my teacher did, I am going to speak directly and briefly about three of his observations concerning leadership. [v] One of Heifetz’s primary ideas concerns the difference between a technical problem and an adaptive challenge. A technical problem is one that we already know how to respond to; best practices, if you will, already exist. It may be simple like setting a broken bone or incredibly complicated like putting a person on the moon, but an expert, a mechanic, surgeon or rocket scientist, already knows how to handle it. [vi]
An adaptive challenge is different. No adequate response has been developed for it. I have in mind our terrible problem of people without housing, racial prejudice, addiction, education, misinformation, poverty, war, white Christian nationalism, election denial, despair, isolation, etc. It is tempting to treat an adaptive challenge as if it were a technical problem, to look to an authority to solve that problem for us. But problems like this require cooperation among groups of people who are seeking solutions, not pretending to already know all the answers.
What was Jesus’ adaptive challenge? His disciples thought it was overthrowing the Roman Empire or enthroning a king who shared their identity. But this was not it. Instead Jesus was what the theologian Paul Tillich calls “the New Being.” Jesus inaugurated a new way of being human which he called “the realm of God” in which all people would be healed, cared for and treated with dignity. It is a realm of spiritual well-being in which we experience God as a kind of loving father such as the father in the Prodigal Son story. This is what Jesus means when he says, “the Father knows me and I know the Father” (Jn. 10).
As a spiritual community Grace Cathedral shares this adaptive challenge of working for the realm of God. And in a society where Christianity is justifiably associated with misogyny, homophobia and unkindness we offer a vision of community in which anyone can belong before they believe. On the basis of our conviction that every person without exception is beloved by God we have taken on the adaptive challenge of transforming Christianity, of reimagining church with courage, joy and wonder. [vii]
- Strategic Principles. Heifetz speaks a great deal about the practical work of leadership. He describes this as creating a kind of holding container for people working on the problem and then paying attention to one’s own feelings to understand the mind of the group.
Leadership involves uncovering and articulating the adaptive challenge. A leader also needs to manage the anxiety of the group. People have to be concerned enough to want to act but not so afraid that they will give up in hopelessness. Because human beings tend to avoid hard challenges, a leader needs to keep the group focused on the problem not just on trying to relieve the stress the group is feeling. This involves giving the work back to people at a rate they can assimilate. He also points out how important it is to protect leaders who do not have authority so that they can contribute to the solution. [viii]
- Values. Heifetz taught us that the best leaders have such a deep feeling for their mission they will, if necessary, sacrifice themselves for the higher purpose. Heifetz refers to the leaders getting (metaphorically, mostly I hope) assassinated. This happens when the stress a leader generates in order to solve a problem becomes so great that the leader gets expelled. This is how I understand Jesus’ life. Jesus talks about this.
In today’s gospel the Greek the word kalos which we translate as good, as in Good Shepherd, probably means something more like real or genuine. Jesus says that the hired hand is there for the transaction, for the payment, but the real shepherd has the power (ezousian often translated as authority) to lay down his life (the Greek word is psuxēn or soul) for the sake of the sheep. Many leaders at some point have to decide whether to keep pushing for uncomfortable change even when they know it might mean they will be forced to leave.
Before closing I want to briefly tell you about a leader who shaped us, our first dean, J. Wilmer Gresham. Dean Gresham moved to San Jose California for health reasons. In 1910 at the age of 39 when he was asked to become the first Dean of Grace Cathedral he hesitated wondering if the damp cold of San Francisco would kill him. Almost immediately after moving here to this block, he discerned his adaptive challenges: to build this Cathedral and to begin a ministry of healing that involved organizing groups to gather for prayer that gradually became an national movement. He helped so many people privately, financially. Trusting God he gave all of himself. [ix]
After serving almost 30 years Dean Gresham retired and a year later his wife Emily Cooke Graham died. Many evenings he would stand on the sidewalk in front of their old home weeping for her. He found so much comfort in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, that he gave a stained glass window in the South Transept in her memory. He did this so that we would know that like the sheep in the arms of Jesus we are loved by God.
At the end of our leadership course Ronald Heifetz reminded us that he had told us at the beginning that he would disappoint us. He talked about how at times the teaching staff too had felt that we were wandering in the desert, that some students might have felt hurt or misrepresented. But most of all he taught us how to say goodbye.
Heifetz promised that we could shed light in our life even when there is no light around us. He said that the God of the Greek philosopher Archimedes was called “the unmoved mover.” But Heifetz said that he believed much more in Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s idea of God as “the most moved mover.”
My dear ones, we are all called to lay down our lives for the sake of God’s realm. But we are not left without comfort. We have each other and we always have the Good Shepherd. Jesus teaches that God loves us the way that a faithful teacher loves her students or a father treasures his lost child.
The Rev. Jim Wallis
The inaugural holder of the Chair in Faith and Justice at the McCourt School of Public Policy and founding Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice
“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (Mk. 11)!
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E17
Palm and Passion Sunday (Year B) 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 24 March 2024
Mark 11:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1—15:47
“[T]here is nothing that requires as gentle a treatment as the removal of an illusion.” We saw this in COVID misinformation and today in political speeches about “white replacement,” the “Deep State” and the “stolen election.” Directly confronting people who hold mistaken beliefs only makes them more defensive and resistant. It only strengthens their self-deception. The eighteenth century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) points out that, “It is not easy to correct a mistake that concerns a person’s entire existence.”
What about the illusions that we hold? Is there hope that we might see the truth? For many years I resisted the impulse behind celebrating Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday in the same worship service. I rebelled against participating in the joyful palm procession, singing Hosanna in the highest on the same day that we walk with Jesus through his abandonment, suffering and death. For me these two moods could not reasonably occupy the same space at the same time. Today I see that the purpose of Palm Sunday is to remove our illusions.
In our Cathedral’s north “Theological Reform Window” we have a delightful image of Kierkegaard sitting in his purple suit reading a book. He was born in 1813 and his biographer suggests that he was perhaps one of the first philosophers to write about “the experience of living in a recognizably modern world of newspapers, trains, [buses] window-shopping, amusement parks, and great stores of knowledge and information.”
For what would we give our lives? Peter fumbles this spectacularly in today's gospel. Jesus was teaching openly that he was going to suffer, it was a matter of fact, a condition of his — and our — living, The response of the Spirit to suffering is compassion, or presence and companionship with the one who suffers. Instead, Peter does something that may be intimately familiar to us: he tries to "fix" it. He wants to make it go away. He clings to his own ideas of what ought to be, and rather than ease Jesus' suffering, it actually increases Peter's own. The Way of the Cross shows us a more loving way of living and giving our lives. Lent 2B: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
“We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying and see – we are alive; as punished and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything (2 Cor. 5)."
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E11
Ash Wednesday (Year B) 6:00 p.m. Eucharist 2
Wednesday 14 February 2024 | Valentine’s Day
Joel 2:1-2,12-17
Psalm 103:8-14
Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E10 Last Epiphany (Year B) 8:30 a.m. & 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 11 February 2024 | Quinquagesima
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9
“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40).
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E8, P5
5 Epiphany (Year B) 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Eucharist
Sunday 4 February 2024
Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-12
1 Cor. 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39
The Rev. John Dear is an internationally recognized voice and leader for peace and nonviolence. A priest, activist, and author, he served for years as the director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. The author of forty books, including They Will Inherit the Earth and Lazarus, Come Forth!, Father John is founder and director of The Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus, where he hosts and offers virtual workshops on Jesus and nonviolence. He was nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, including by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He lives in Cayucos, CA.
The Rev. Dr. Laurie Garrett-Cobbina
Dean of the San Francisco Theological Seminary,
Shaw Chair for CPE Program, and Professor of Pastoral Care and Education at San Francisco Theological Seminary/University of Redlands, San Anselmo, CA.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King legacy we gather to celebrate today matters. Just as Jesus revealed the power and glory of God through how he acted, what he said, who he befriended, who he included, Martin Luther King’s prophetic ministry reveals something powerful to society, the religious world in general, and the Christian Church in particular. Our gathering today is God, again, breaking into our self-interests and telling us to hear the sound of freedom, and see today as an original moment to strive for justice and freedom, not just as a figment of fond remembrance.
The First Sunday After Christmas Day: Isaiah 61:10—62:3 Psalm 147:13-21 Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7 John 1:1-18 Scriptural references to light, are about God-given wisdom and insight. They are about fearless searching for truth, about self-knowledge, unveiling what is hidden, and brightening the shadows. This is the light to which we are all end. Holding that commission and understanding tenderly, I need to now turn to the shadow cast by the Israel-Gaza war, and our own call to witness to light in the darkness. We are not in Gaza or Israel, and most of us are not in Gazan or Palestinian or Israeli families. If there is one thing we can do to witness to light in the darkness, it is to join those who have laid down their arms for the cause of peace in this pledge jointly written by Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones to war: https://parentscirclefriends.org/pledge/
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Christmas Eve 11:00pm Choral Eucharist
Sunday 24 December 2023
Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D87
Christmas Eve (Proper 1) 7:30 p.m. Eucharist
Sunday 24 December 2023
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96:1-4, 11-13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
“Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people” (Lk. 2)
“We stand with one hand on the door looking into another world, / That is this world.” The farmer poet Wendell Berry (1934-) wrote these words about Christmas in a poem called “Remembering that It Happened Once.” [1] Here’s the whole poem.
“Remembering that it happened once, / We cannot turn away the thought, / As we go out, cold, to our barns / Toward the long night’s end, that we / Ourselves are living in the world / It happened in when it first happened, / That we ourselves, opening a stall / (A latch thrown open countless times / Before), might find them breathing there, /”
“Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw, / The mother kneeling over Him, / The husband standing in belief / He scarcely can believe, in light / That lights them from no source we see, / An April morning’s light, the air / Around them joyful as a choir. / We stand with one hand on the door, / Looking into another world / That is this world, the pale daylight / Coming just as before, our chores / To do, the cattle all awake, / Our own white frozen breath hanging / In front of us; and we are here / As we have never been before, / Sighted as not before, our place / Holy, although we knew it not.” [2]
On Christmas Eve we stand between worlds. And for a moment, if we pay attention, we see our place as holy. We do not always experience our life this way. We inhabit a confusing world full of terror and distraction. These days wars in the Middle East, Ukraine and Africa cast a long shadow over the human family. Every year we become even more aware that our indifference is endangering the planet itself.
Other forms of sadness threaten to overcome us. Perhaps you have been lying awake at night because you have a child who is in serious trouble. Or perhaps, you have suddenly found yourself alone in the world to face the storms of life without someone to lean on. Or perhaps some kind of addiction holds you in its grip, or you are looking back to brighter years that you know are gone forever and will never come back. [3]
To the shepherds, to all of us tonight the angel announces a sign. A young woman is having a baby called Emmanuel which means God with us. This is the message: we are not alone or abandoned. The sign shows that joy is at the heart of being alive. Because of this baby, the world is being turned upside down. Violence is not at the center of reality, love is. [4]
Seeing the world like this may sound easy, but there is a catch. In order to experience this joy we have to be satisfied with living in a mystery. This does not mean that we have to believe what is unbelievable, that we have to give up critical thinking, or that we are not allowed to have doubts. It’s just that the infinite will not fit into our finite minds. And so our existence is made strange by the kind of creatures we are. We long for the infinite but can never really control or comprehend it.
In the way that a mother gives birth to her child, we become who we are by giving ourselves away. For me this is what makes being a parent such a transcendent experience. Taking care of our children, walking in the oak woodlands, reading stories at sunset after a warm bath, all this made joy an even more central part of my life. Joy is that experience of being called into existence as a kind of creature who is different than God and yet who has a share in the mystery of God. We are made for this delight. [5]
Our friend and Dean Emeritus Alan Jones used to remind us that in Christianity the, “things of God can be handled and held.” In fact, “[T]he things of God can be kissed and caressed.” He talks about how strange it is that Christ enters into history in order to offer us the gift of peace. And that for this reason the true Christ can never assume the shape of violence. The baby and her child are a sign of three great truths. First, the world is a gift. Second the nature of the gift is communion (for all people and the world). Third, this true communion celebrates diversity and difference. Let me say only a little more about each of these. [6]
- The Gift. Ninety-nine years ago this week the astronomer Edwin Hubble announced the discovery of the first galaxy outside our own Milky Way. By 2019 we believed that there were 200 billion galaxies. Now after the New Horizon space probe we think there are 2 trillion galaxies. [7] This is the world we inhabit. This is the generosity of God.
One of my favorite Christmas moments happened years ago, after everyone went home from the midnight service. I turned off the lights and closed up my old church. In the cold, alone on that holy night with the stars, with trillions of worlds stretching across the heavens, I felt God with me, overwhelmed by the miracle that we exist. All of this beauty, everything that is good, is a gift from God. [8]
And this is the peculiarity and the scandal of our faith. It is not chiefly about big ideas or philosophical principles but a God who is particular. At Christmas we celebrate and take delight in the God who can be touched, who can be held as a baby. [9]
At the Christmas pageant this morning we asked children what they wanted to pray for. A boy said, “For the fighting to stop.” Loud applause followed. A girl announced that she wanted her neutered cat to have kittens. Another prayed that a particular candidate would not be elected as president (also to enthusiastic applause). But the most beautiful thing of all was Sinclair our baby Jesus sitting on her father’s lap giving us such joy.
- Communion. I’ve been reading Jill Lepore’s book These Truths, a one volume history of America. American history always fascinated me but there is so much that I missed. [10] She writes about the Emancipation Proclamation that freed enslaved Americans and what it felt like for them. “In South Carolina the proclamation was read out to the First South Carolina Volunteer Infantry, a regiment of former slaves. At its final lines, the soldiers began to sing, quietly at first, and then louder: My country ‘tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing!”
She goes on, “American slavery had lasted for centuries. It had stolen the lives of millions and crushed the lives of millions more... It had poisoned a people and a nation. It had turned hearts to stone… The American odyssey had barely begun. From cabins and fields they left. Freed men and women didn’t always head north.”
“They often went south or west, traveling hundreds of miles by foot, on horseback, by stage and by train, searching. They were husbands in search of wives, wives in search of children, mothers and fathers looking for children, children looking for parents, chasing word and rumors about where their loved ones had been sold, sale after sale, across the country. Some of their wanderings lasted years. They sought their own union, a union of their beloved.” This year at Christmas as I’m imagining the joy of those reunions, I’m reminded how we are made for communion.
- Diversity. Finally let me say a short word about diversity. The two largest religious denominations in America do not permit women to be ordained as leaders of churches. This week Pope Francis gave permission for Roman Catholic priests to give same sex couples blessings in private. He said that these should not in any way look like marriage ceremonies. [11] In our church we have women, trans, gay and lesbian people serving at every level of ordained ministry. We believe that God is present when same sex couples get married here in church. I have experienced such a deep sense of joy at their ordinations and weddings. I wish every person could see it.
We are all different from each other. But this is not a problem. We should not feel threatened by this. We are not competing. There is not one of us that has gotten it all right. Our diversity is part of God’s gift to us. We are one human family.
What happens when we do not receive the world, communion with each other and diversity as a gift? The theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546) says that we become incurvatus se, that is curved in on ourself. We refuse to be fully alive. We are cut off from each other and the very sources of what should be our greatest happiness. We become distanced from our true self. This is a kind of hell that we all experience in varying degrees. In this condition we become walled off from joy.
But tonight is holy. It is time to make peace with the mystery and come back home. For many years the famous religion scholar Huston Smith was a member of my grandfather’s congregation in Massachusetts. He said that churches waiting for Christmas are like a child with her face pressed against the window on a cold winter night. Then she runs through the household saying, “Daddy’s home. Daddy’s home.”
Tonight we share this joy in our Christmas carols and in stories whose meaning can never be exhausted. The world is not made of atoms but of stories. Our stories are imperfect ways of expressing an unsayable encounter with the infinite God. Tonight we are here as we never have been before. There is joy at the very heart of being alive. As a mother gives birth to her child let us become who we are by giving our self away.
Because in these 2 trillion galaxies, the things of God can be kissed and caressed. The world is a gift. The nature of that gift is communion. True communion celebrates diversity and difference. We stand with one hand on the door looking into another world…”
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
Christmas Eve 4:00pm Festival of Lessons & Carols
Sunday 24 December 2023
“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1).
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
1 Advent (Year B) 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 3 December 2023 | After the Episcopal Election
- ‘A hui hou. Stay awake. Stay awake. In 2004 my best friend was an opera singer named Jennifer Lopez. Jenn is not the famous actor known as J. Lo (although the two were born a year apart). In her early forties doctors diagnosed Jenn with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. She returned to her parent’s house in California to die.
I visited her every Wednesday. The first question she would always ask was, “How is your family?” and the second question would be about a sick person in the congregation or my dissertation. She understood what mattered to me. Jenn was the perfect confidante. I could speak honestly to her about my frustrations with my dissertation advisor or the church leadership without worrying that she might think less of me. Jenn always gave people the benefit of the doubt. [i]
Jenn learned to sing in our church and I can imagine her as a girl first beginning to realize her great talent. On some visits we would watch videotapes of her operas. I loved watching her sweep down the stage in a flowing dress singing so powerfully. Her face in those performances showed so much emotion and sensitivity.
Once I confided to her that sometimes when I watched an opera singer or listened to a musician like a cellist, I almost secretly fell in love with the performer and tried to imagine what their life was like offstage. “Well this is it!” she joked as she gestured to her wheelchair. We spent hours laughing together.
Strangely enough my favorite images of Jenn come from her family photograph albums. Because the colors in those pictures seemed brighter than real life they were particularly appropriate for her spirit. Images from band trips, graduations, summer parties and family gatherings were a wonderful collage expressing her youthfulness, energy and all-around zaniness.
Over time Jenn lost the ability to speak, but because we spent so much time together I could understand her. More than most Jenn loved life and there were times, as it was withdrawn from her, that she despaired. Sometimes I still can hear the moaning sound that at the end of her life was the only way she could express this disappointment. But Jenn never complained, never lost interest.
Above all the two of us loved Jesus. Before she got sick she had begun the process of getting ordained as a priest. If only we could have had a long career together serving God’s people! When I think back to those Wednesdays I realize that we talked a lot about death. But my overwhelming memory is how awake we were – awake to the simplest joys of life and to tragedy. We were awake to the way God’s invisible love surrounds us like a thick blanket on a winter night.
- The darkness we experienced together is the darkness of Advent. Today we celebrate the first Sunday of the new year. The church calendar could have started with the joy of Easter, or the newness and vulnerability of Christmas, or the fiery energy of Pentecost. But instead we begin in the shadow of war, hatred and sorrow. We begin in darkness: waiting, singing and praying for new light. Yesterday hundreds were killed as war returned to Gaza. We pray for the end of violence in the Middle East, Africa and Ukraine. We refuse to turn our eyes away from the suffering.
In America as the secular world prepares for a consumer Christmas, Christians could hardly be more out of step. We are awake, waiting for Christ to come in glory at the end of time. The older I get the more I treasure our Advent hymns. We sing, “Zion hears the watchman singing; her heart with joyful hope is springing, she wakes and hurries through the night…” (Hymn 61). [ii]
On this first Sunday of the church year, as we await the advent of Christ, we begin a new story about Jesus. The principle way we know about Jesus is through the four gospels. The word gospel means good news. Because three of the four gospels share so much in common and look so similar we call them the synoptic gospels. Each of our three year cycle of Sunday readings is based on one of them (with the Gospel of John filling out the rest of each year).
Matthew uses five sections (like the Torah or the five books of Moses) to show that Jesus is a new Moses. Luke describes Jesus as the Lord’s royal servant who brings God’s light to the nations of the world. John explains how Jesus reunites us with God in a way that we could never accomplish on our own.
- Today we are entering the year of Mark. Mark explains how humanity comes to have a new start. He writes about how a new reality called the Kingdom of God comes into history and transforms it. Mark uses a simpler vocabulary and grammar to form powerful, compact sentences. His favorite word in Greek is euthus. It means immediately. It comes up so often that sometimes translators just leave it out.
Mark presents the hearer or reader with a choice about who Jesus is. The only time Mark is really direct about his own position is in the first sentence of the gospel when he writes, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk. 1).
The Gospel of Mark has three sections. The first takes place in Galilee and the last in Jerusalem. The middle section occurs as Jesus travels between the two places. In the first section the world wonders who Jesus is. Mark quotes Malachi (3:1) and Isaiah (40:3) describing Jesus as a kind of messenger from God. At Jesus’ baptism a voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved” (Mk. 1). Jesus heals people, casts out their demons and forgives their sins. He tells them about God’s kingdom using stories about a sower casting seeds, and about a tiny mustard seed that grows into a great plant.
In the second section of Mark, Jesus’ friends are struggling to understand who he is. Jesus asks, “but who do you say I am.” Peter boldly calls Jesus the Messiah (Mk. 8). At the time Peter still has in mind a conquering military hero who will overthrow the Roman authorities. Jesus subverts the whole idea of a messiah. He teaches them that the Son of Man did not come to be served but to be serve others. On the mountain two of Jesus’ friends see him talking with Elijah and Moses. From an overshadowing cloud a voice says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him” (Mk. 9).
The final section of Mark shows how Jesus becomes king. A royal procession takes Jesus into Jerusalem where he teaches in the temple. Mark writes, “a large crowd was listening to him with delight” (Mk. 12:37). Later sitting on the Mount of Olives four of his friends ask him when the end will come. Jesus answers with the words we just heard. No one, not the angels nor even the Son of Humanity will know the time. He says literally, “keep on being awake.” [iii] Mark uses the word grēgoreō like the name Gregory. It means to be alert or awake, literally woke.
Jesus becomes the Messiah or king by being crucified. A Roman centurion seems to be the only one who understands. He says, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mk. 15). When the women go to the tomb an angelic young man in white tells them that Jesus has been raised. The gospel ends abruptly as they flee, “… for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
Mark confronts every person with this question. Who will Jesus be for you? The twentieth century monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) writes, “This is the most complete revolution that has ever been preached: in fact, it is the only true revolution, because all others demand the extermination of somebody else, but this one means the death of the [person] who, for all practical purposes, you have come to think of as your own self.” [iv]
- In this season of Advent we have the chance to prepare a place in ourselves and in the world to receive Christ. There is so much in the Divine plan that we cannot understand, dark places, unmapped territories and worlds to discover. I invite you to encounter Jesus in our present moment. Let me close with a poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes called “Longing.”
“Unsuspecting at first, of course, / you only gradually begin to feel / an urge, a leaning, / slow to become a promise, / a yearning that will become / its own gift, given from beyond. / It grows from a tiny seed, / a grace that is not your doing, / a single cell: / a change of season, / a subtle turning of the heart, / until by some grace you will know. / But now you do not yet, / you are still longing. / But know this, you are Mary, / and Gabriel is near.” [v]
On my very last visit with Jennifer before going out of town, we both knew that we probably would not see each other again in this world. I prayed so hard for a miracle that would instantly make her whole and healthy again. What I discovered was someone who was truly awake - who loved Jesus. That night in a dream her grandmother Margaret, who had died when she was eight years old, kept pulling her hand.
At the end of our visit, I asked if there was anything she wanted to say before I unplugged her laser pointer for the last time. She pointed out the letters for “Mahalo,” or thank you in Hawaiian. I told her ‘a hui hou which means until we meet again. She was so tired and she shut her eyes as I read evening prayer with the Song of Simeon. It goes, “Lord you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised.” I closed my prayerbook, looked into her face and said goodbye. She opened her eyes, smiled back at me and mouthed the words ‘a hui hou.
‘A hui hou. Stay awake. Stay awake. Come Lord Jesus.
[i] We spent those mornings talking about our families, dreams and worries. We talked about the most ordinary things and the profoundest. We talked about politics, art and our love of Jesus. Her commentary on the family and friends in those photographs was priceless. She was smart enough to recognize all of our crazy inconsistencies, idiosyncrasies and frailties, but kind enough to love us even more because of them. Above all Jenn forgave the people around her for the rough edges that make us human. I like to think that she cared for us oddballs more than the normal people.
“I pray that… God… may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation… so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…” (Eph. 1).
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46
Having grown up in the military, packing up and moving every few years was part of my life as early as I could remember.
Our move to Illinois, though, the year I started third grade, wasn’t like the ones before it.
My mother didn’t stand in the rooms with the moving company ensuring that her china was wrapped just so, that the teak table and chairs remained unscratched, that her piano was moved gently.
And our things, she didn’t hear my stories about my stuffed animals and dolls, my books -- the explanations for why they most certainly needed to make the trip north.
Instead, without thought or selection, without narrative history, or biography, everything from my drawers, closet, and every surface in my room, was unceremoniously picked up and dumped into boxes, which, when filled up, were sealed closed, headed for burial in a moving truck.
One box left me deeply troubled. The woman from the moving company’s fleshy arms hurled more than held my treasures into the cold darkness of a box, and while popping a cigarette in her mouth and casting her eyes about the room for what must have been her lighter, sealed the box and got up with a harrumph.
She didn’t seem to like her job, I thought.
And then it hit me. Squee! Oh no! I dashed around the room looking for my favorite stuffed animal, Squee the mouse.
Squee had been my companion from an early age. And since my mother had died a few months before, he had come back into my life as a great comfort.
But he was not on my bed. He was not under it or anywhere to be found. I was in a panic!
Squee was in the box!
I was terrified for him.
You OK honey? The moving lady said when she came back in. But I couldn’t speak. And I sat down, with my back to the box, legs curled into the hug of my arms.
After dinner My dad helped me unseal the box and dig through it, until we found him, Squee. A book had been pressing into his snout and left a triangular imprint, so I gave him extra love there.
Many weeks later, after our long drive north in our convertible VW, the moving truck arrived at our new quarters, and we began unpacking.
In one of the boxes marked “girl’s room” I unearthed a jar with coins and a note in it . . . “I owe you” the note said. “On June 1, 1973. I owe Mary Carter Greene $2.35 and will pay one dime every day after June 10 if not paid by then. Signed, Alan Greene.”
Wait a minute! I had hit the jack pot! This was January and my brother never HAD paid this back. His debt was more than 200 days overdue. That buried promise had made me rich!
Joy and Woe are woven fine, William Blake wrote.
“It is right it should be so; Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Thro' the world we safely go. Joy and woe are woven fine, A clothing for the soul divine. Under every grief and pine Runs a joy with silken twine.
I couldn’t have been happier, but there was much weeping and gashing of teeth, when I brought the credit slip to my brother.
It wasn’t long before our dad had to get involved.
14 ‘For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them;
19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
Matthew’s parable is most often read one of two ways – each as contradictory to the other as the story of my young self – able to love so fiercely I would stop the world for a stuffed animal, and equally able to extort my only brother’s last penny, if I thought it were owed me.
Although sometimes read this way, Matthew’s story does not point to a Kingdom where some are denied because they fail to participate.
The story draws attention to an unjust system.
The parable would have been heard in its day as a description of the times– when peasants were extorted and their land was taken by those who held the concentrated wealth of powerful families and influence as city officials;
The parable reflects how the early followers of Jesus struggled in difficult times to know how to best wait for his return and how to live in the meantime.
Should they play into the social demands to do the dirty work of the system or live in a radically different way that might realize the Kingdom Jesus described earlier in Matthew?
An act of subversion and resistance, those who heard Matthew’s Gospel were then and are now invited to exercise the same.
Unjust social systems, accumulation of wealth by the few, and greed of the many, as described in the parable, persist to this day, of course.
Andy Knox at his reimaginingthefuture blog1 retells the parable for our global economy this way . . .
For it will be like the CEO of a big chocolate company, who went to the Ivory Coast to ensure a good flow of chocolate into the West and ever expand his chocolate empire.
He called three of his most entrusted leaders to himself and asked them to ensure more chocolate at a lower price. He set one of them, with the most experience over 5 factories, the next one over 3 factories and the last one over 1 factory.
The first two . . .knew if they did well, they would secure their own future in the company and good income for their families. . . they came up with a cunning plan. They decided the best way would be to get cheap or even free labor.
So, they enslaved children from the surrounding area . . . (from) families who were too poor to keep them. (They) . . . put them to work in the fields, picking the cocoa, or . . . at the grinding machines, under terrible . . . conditions, in which many of the children died or were abused by hard task masters.
The third manager saw what the other two were up to . . . He refused to enslave children and couldn’t understand the motivation of the CEO.
He chose to pay people a fair wage, keep their working conditions good and have strong morale amongst his team.
The CEO returned. He was . . . full of praise for the ‘business acumen’ of the first two. He paid them well, ensuring his ‘fair trade’ logo and set them up for even more . . .
The third guy was out . . . sacked from the company with no right of appeal. Confused and dismayed . . . (he) continued try to live a life that restored people’s humanity and hoped for “the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible”.
Andy Knox’s retelling of the parable demonstrates how Woe and joy are woven fine.
It is hard to do the right thing in systems that demand and oppress at worst and enthrall and distract at best. But it is possible.
It can be hard to see into supply chains like the one described in parable of the chocolate magnate, but to act justly in a problematic system, we can consider our consumption in the first place and be intentional about how we spend our money.
As someone who loves shopping, I’ll be the first to admit that making changes can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, there is research to support next steps.
A Nature article, “Scientists’ warning on affluence,”2 for instance, lays out a strong correlation between affluence and the growing climate crisis.
The research doesn’t stop at gloom and doom; It offers steps to correct for our part in the system.
“For over half a century,” the article says, “worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology.
“The affluent citizens of the world.” The article continues, “are responsible for most environmental impacts and are . . .” (here’s the parable at play) “central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions.”
The research-based article lays out some clear, if not easy, behavioral changes we can make in the U.S. including avoiding . . . oversized, unnecessary and duplicate goods and services; shifting from animal to plant-based food sources; sharing and repairing before replacing goods; and pushing for regulation that reflects concerns for people and the planet.
These may be new habits, even counter cultural to the clarion call for the new, new thing in the days leading up to Black Friday and the biggest shopping season of the year.
But this is what our Gospel teaches us. The Kingdom of God will be brought by the courageous, even the radical. These sorts of changes are necessary, and they are possible.
This sort of faith brings us here today where our shared communion unites us with God and as the Grace Cathedral community.
Our shared commitment to stand up for God’s creation and all of humanity, and against systems that oppress, degrade, and injure, means we do not have to be the alone in metaphorically burying the talent.
In the radical presence of the church still standing, still growing, still thriving, we respond the crises of our time as a community.
We have not yet been a community to stand back and watch God’s people get boxed up and sealed away from hope, and I know we won’t allow God’s creation to suffer that either.
Have courage and meet our time – this is the message of our parable today. The third man in the parable does not sow despair by planting that talent, he seeds hope.
Woe and joy are knit together.
God is our source of this joy and the presence that will provide all we need to meet the times.
So, this week, which we mark as Ingathering Sunday, we give thanks for all who have pledged to support the cathedral financially,
and we nudge those who are waiting, to invest your gifts and treasures in this cathedral community.
With courage, together, we are 100% Grace.
In the midst of loss, there is a kernel of hope, even the hope of hope that brings us together. We might hope for a reunion for those who have gone before us, but our modern minds chafe at the idea. It's beautiful, but is it, or how is it true? Jesus' teaching opens our hearts to prayers for the dead, the trust that they are being perfected in God's sight. It also welcomes us to the Eucharistic feast, where we taste in part what we will taste fully at the end of time. Everything is waiting for you to begin.
All Faithful Departed:
Psalm 130,
Wisdom 3:1-9,
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18,
John 5:24-27
“I sought the Lord, who answered me and delivered me out of all my terror" (Ps. 34).
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D79
All Saint’s Day 11:00 a.m. Baptism
Sunday 5 November 2023
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Inspired by Charles Dicken’s novel David Copperfield, Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this year. In the book she describes rural poverty, the effects of the opioid crisis and a scene that is so upsetting that both my wife and I independently had to stop reading and look away.
The main character and narrator Demon is born in the aftermath of the collapse of coal-mining as an industry in his Virginia town. He longs to see the ocean but wonders if he will ever get there. His father died before he was even born. Demon’s mom marries an abusive step-father and herself dies of an OxyContin overdose on his 11th birthday.
Demon lives and works (without being paid) with foster children on a tobacco farm. For a brief while he is taken in by the McCobb family with four small children under the age of seven. They too take most of the pay check he earns sorting garbage at a local convenience store.
When their car gets repossessed and they have to move, the family abandons him. He takes to the road with his backpack and his life savings in a peanut butter jar and tries to find a distant grandmother he has never met. It is terrifying to read about a twelve year old hitching rides with strangers.
At a truck stop he tries to escape a prostitute by going into the men’s room. He doesn’t realize it but she follows him in and sees him sitting in the stall. When he comes out she accuses him of stealing her money. The store clerk searches his backpack and gives every cent he has to the woman. The boy runs out into the night with nothing.
Intense misery, injustice and cruelty make us want to look away. Think of the way we sometimes respond to people with horrifying sores who we encounter on the streets here in San Francisco, or the families whose loved ones were murdered or kidnapped by Hamas, or the near total destruction of Gaza. Suffering like this can feel like a threat to our innermost self because we know how vulnerable we are too (becoming a parent exposes us to a radically new vulnerability). When we see too much suffering we cannot look anymore.
“Those who trust in [the Lord] will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love…” (Wisdom 3).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D77
All Souls / All Faithful Departed (LFF 2022) Evensong 50
Thursday 2 November 2023 Bishop Candidates Visit
Wisdom 3:1-9
Psalm 130
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
John 5:24-27
At the Bishop’s Ranch for my first clergy retreat I remember the late afternoon heat and that September smell of dust, chaparral and Bay Tree (with a hint of campfire smoke). I knew hardly anyone there as I walked up the Ranch House driveway. The first person to greet me was sixty-eight year old David Forbes. He was fit and trim, wearing a t-shirt and short cut-off jeans. He called me by name. He knew that I had graduated from Cal, that I played rugby there and that we were the national champions.
In those days everyone confused me for Bruce O’Neill and for what seems like years David was the only senior clergy person other than the bishop who actually knew my name. David had grown up in San Francisco. He served here for years as we finished constructing this building’s four walls and as the modern cathedral came into being.
David was involved in building the back half of the Cathedral, installing the human endeavor windows in the clerestory, the East lancet windows and the rose window. He was intimately involved in choosing vestments that we still use, making this granite and redwood altar at the center of the crossing, the governance structures of the cathedral and even the design of our worship services. It was his idea to engrave on our pulpit “In the Beginning” in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.
David founded the Cathedral School for Boys (1961) and St. Paul’s School in Oakland (1965), and later the National Association of Episcopal Schools. He helped me a great deal twenty years ago when our church started our own school in the South Bay. When I joined Grace Cathedral, David served as a chaplain to our staff and especially to me. The two of us would have monthly lunches on Polk Street. Sometimes we would drive around town and he would describe his childhood memories of different neighborhoods.
Although David died in April 2022, I think of him nearly every day when I bike past the restaurant where we used to talk. As we celebrate All Souls Day together we remember the people who have died but who seem almost tangibly near to us. David was the most youthful person in his nineties who you will ever meet. He loved new beginnings. He was always oriented toward the future and cared passionately about the Cathedral.
I want to talk briefly about the message David would share with us. We served together on the board for the Cathedral School for Boys almost to his death. David was active on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion taskforce. For him the purpose of the school is to give students from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance. As a gay man and a passionate advocate for justice David would be alarmed by our national politics. He would insist that Grace Cathedral more eloquently speak out on behalf of the dignity of all LGBTQ+ people.
Today we are not just celebrating All Souls Day, we are also welcoming our three candidates (with their spouses) who will be in the election for a new bishop on December 2. You may be wondering what David would have to say more specifically in this setting. And I would be too if it were not for a surprise gift I received.
A month ago the Postal Service delivered to my office an old weathered manila envelope with David’s handwriting on the outside. David didn’t use notes when he preached, but this folder contained five typewritten manuscripts for sermons preached at Grace Cathedral in the 1950’s. It also included a stole that his daughter said was given to him by his parents at his ordination here at Grace Cathedral.
The first sentence of his sermon on February 2nd 1958 begins with these words. “Churchmen throughout our Diocese will all testify, I believe, that the topic of the moment is the coming election of the Bishop, who… will succeed Bishop Block.” [1] The whole sermon is about the 1958 bishop election! Let me share with you three things I especially noticed.
First, the sermon addresses a pervasive sense of worry in the Diocese. Up until that point there had only been four diocesan bishops in the history of the whole diocese. In previous cases the new bishop had for all practical purposes been chosen before the balloting. To make matters worse the newspapers were carrying quotes from different candidates. David uses words like perplexity, confusion, disillusionment, smear, inuendo. And phrases like, “battle royale,” and, “less than Christian tactics.” Reading the sermon made me feel so grateful for the civility and graciousness that I have been experiencing through our process.
Second, the sermon points out just what high expectations we have for bishops. A bishop must have the “purest and noblest motives” and spend much time in prayer. The bishop should have the tongue of Chrysostom to stir people to action. The bishop should have color and personality to show the relevance and power of the gospel. This person should have breadth of vision to solve vexing problems and be a capable administrator in managing a “financial empire.” David points out that of course the clergy above all want a sympathetic and discerning pastor. In my experience I do not think this has changed. We still want to be seen for who we are and helped when we feel defeated.
Finally, after considering who we are looking for, David asks us to look at ourselves, that is the ones who are doing the looking. He reminds us that we are fallible and sinful people, that we are liable to error and then to persist in it. The church forgives us from sin but cannot completely stop us from sinning. For this reason we have to depend on the Holy Spirit.
“Those who trust in [the Lord] will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love…” (Wisdom 3). On this day when we remember friends and family members who we love and who have died, I pray that their words will come easily to you, if not by postal service as in my case, then through the theater of your memory. I pray that they will feel so tangibly near that you will hear them call you by name.
No one knows for sure what happens when you die. But when I think of seeing David again I always imagine the two of us greeting each other at the Ranch House, walking down the grape arbor to the swimming pool on a warm fall day. There is so much that I would want to share with him. His childlike embrace of new beginnings would make him love what we are doing today. He would want to know all about our candidates for bishop and the upcoming election. He would laugh at how much and how little has changed.
David finishes that sermon from 1958 with these words, “God does have a purpose for this diocese. It is a simple one, although its execution is not so easy. The purpose is to have us grow in zeal and effectiveness, witness powerfully to the love of God for all [people]… Yes, God is with us now and will be with us at Convention… let us ask that He guide us to a knowledge of His will and that he give us the courage to stand for it. May God grant us wisdom and understanding, faithfulness and charity.”
[1] David Forbes, “Sermon Preached in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, February 2, 1958 (Prior to the Election of the Bishop Coadjutor).”
“Lord you have been our refuge from one generation to another" (Ps. 90).
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D74
21 Pentecost (Proper 24A) 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 22 October 2023
Exodus 33:12-23
Psalm 99
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22
- Where is God hidden? Beth and Jonathan Singer, the senior rabbis at Temple Emmanuel feel like big siblings to me. This is the ninth year we have been friends and I admire them very much. On Thursday for lunch they convened a group of 13 religious leaders (half Jewish and half not Jewish) to talk about the recent violence in the Middle East. They opened the conversation by sharing their deep concern for the people who live in Gaza, and their support for a two state solution to the diplomatic crisis.
They also talked about the terrible pain they are feeling, about friends with family members who are being held hostage in tunnels under the ground. I heard about many funerals, some for young people. Beth said that she hoped that together we would really speak from the heart, even if this lead us into uncomfortable places.
All the Jewish leaders spoke, then most of the others except me. Jonathan said, “what do you have to say Malcolm?” Frankly I did not want to say anything. I have never been to the Middle East and did not feel I had much to add. It is difficult to talk about how horrifying and inhumane the terrorist attacks by Hamas are and yet at the same time to recognize that the situation for ordinary people in Gaza seems impossible. I told them that our community is connected to Jewish people and Palestinians too, that every day we pray for peace, that we long for peace.
This seemed to understandably upset one of the other rabbis who I don’t know as well. She said that peace is not enough. After the terrible violence, after the innocent people who have been murdered, something has to be done immediately to make things right. I think all of us felt the tension, the anger and despair, as she emphatically said that prayers are not enough. We say that here too – when we talk about the epidemic of gun violence in America.
It felt like we had moved far away from the Hebrew prayer of blessing before the meal. God is not just hidden in violence and inhumanity. God can seem hidden to us in our personal pain and fear, and in our humiliation when we have said the wrong thing.
Today is a day of invitations and explorations.
Throughout the day, during the service and beyond, we are invited to observe the Children’s Sabbath, a day inspired by the Children’s Defense Fund, when faith groups celebrate childhood and tune into the concerns of children, youth, and families.
We will celebrate our children in a few ways:
To begin, we remember the children of the previous generation in this altar frontal made by Grace Cathedral’s young people ~25 years ago.
And we celebrate our own childhood by tapping that quiet compass within us.
Later, during the offertory, some of our young people will present their Creation-tide-artwork.
And at coffee hour today, our youth program welcomes you to a screening of the film of their social justice youth pilgrimage to the American South last summer.
Today’s invitation in the children’s sabbath is about more than demonstrations though;
like a wedding banquet, this invitation is to witness and to welcome new life in love.
Walter Brueggemann wrote, in the presence of God, (we) are visited, “with the freedom of God, so that we are unafraid to live in the world, able to live differently, not needing to control, not needing to dominate, not needing to accumulate, not driven by anxiety.”1
This is the joy described of childhood, but also the life possible when we are present to God.
It’s the sort of freedom of perspective and grounded joy found in TS Eliot’s poetic imagery.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling, TS Eliot wrote, We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning.
At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree . . .
Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always-- A condition of complete simplicity
Today, when we mark the children’s sabbath, we take this day of rest and restoration, of union with God . . . to realize the divine in our youngest . . . to focus on children, and to find the simplicity of the Great Commandment, to love them as ourselves . . .
In a time of anxiety . . . this stillness . . . to climb the apple tree, to stand between the waves, to find the center point, can seem as out of reach as our own childhood.
Yet, in a time of brutal war, amid cascading atrocities, of unrelenting bad news and the seeming disintegration of the ground beneath us, we need this stillness, this union with God, more than ever.
Our practice and our readings today show us a way forward.
“When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
With Moses gone a moment too long, God’s people decided to count on a more expedient deity . . .
This part of the Exodus story with its sense of remove from God, is the story of our search for easy replacements and is evidently as old as human history . . .
We look for easy idols of course, and we become, as TS Eliot wrote, distracted from distraction by distraction.2
Between the Israelites distraction and God’s response, Moses stood in the breach . . . between what is wrong and what is just, we too are called, to enter the gap and to speak for those who cannot – to find a way to make things right.
Today’s children’s sabbath serves as an alternative to the Golden calf distractions that take us away from the life we are called to join.
The sabbath invites us to begin listening for God’s guidance for the nurture of children, to understand their challenges, and to discern actions to empower, protect, and seek justice for all children, youth, and families.
Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of The Children’s Defense Fund made our call as Christians clear, writing this,
Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said.
He did not say let only rich or middle-class white children come.
He did not say let only the strapping boys but not the girls come.
He did not say let only the able-bodied children come.
All the children He bade come.
He did not say let all my children or your children or our friends’ children or those in our families and neighborhoods and who look and act and speak like us come.
He did not say let only the well-behaved nice children come or those who conform to society’s norms.
He did not say let a few, a third, half, or three fourths come – but all.
Jesus said let the little children come and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven.
The Kingdom of Heaven.
We have been hearing a lot about it in Matthew these past few weeks, and the parable today takes what seems a heavy turn.
There was conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of the time, and a growing threat from Rome.
But Matthew’s Gospel points to a much higher order conflict as well— humanity’s most vexing tension – seen in Exodus and again in Matthew today – our default to try to live without God.
In this parable of invitations-ignored-and- scorned, Jesus refers to our invitation to life with God together, especially in these most challenging times.
Another part of the TS Eliot poem Little Gidding reminds us why we do this in a faith community:
If you came this way, Taking any route, starting from anywhere, At any time or at any season, It would always be the same: you would have to put off sense and notion. You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel.
We came here to kneel, and on this Children’s Sabbath, the creaks our bodies feel when we lower ourselves, may be become aches not for the needs of our own bodies, but those of children and youth in this country and around the world.
We pray for the underrepresented, the marginalized, orphans, the overlooked, the undervalued and underserved, the misunderstood children of our time.
We pray for the immediate cessation of violence on all children around the world, at and within our borders as well, and we pray for policies that ensure children’s security and safety, for their wellbeing, hope and joy, for their part in God’s creation, their part in the building of God’s vision for the world.
And finally, we pray that from God’s invitation we might open our hearts further to discern the needs of the children in our community and beyond.
“When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, Edmond McDonald wrote, “God goes about it in a very singular way. God doesn’t release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes. God simply has a tiny baby born, perhaps of a very humble home, perhaps of a very humble mother. And God puts the idea or purpose into the mother’s heart. And she puts it in the baby’s mind, and then – God waits. The great events of the world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts. The great events are babies, for each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life.”
Children remind us of the goodness and hope promised in our faith life, and our faith life w God gives us all we need to bring about the world our children need and deserve.
United with God, fed at this table, we have all we need to change the world beyond these walls.
And then . . . our invitation tells us,
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
Amen.
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead I press on toward the goal of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D70
19 Pentecost (Proper 23A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 8 October 2023 | Indigenous People's Weekend
Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus… for it is God who is at work in you” (Phil. 2).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA | 2D68 | St. Francis Day - 18 Pentecost (Proper 21A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist | St. Francis Day Pet Blessing
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 148:7-14
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
How do you listen to your soul? How can you hear God’s invitation to change your mind? Brené Brown writes about the difference between fitting in and belonging. All of us know what it means to fit in, to try to change essential parts of ourselves so that we will be accepted by others.
Belonging refers to a very different experience. It means learning to “be present with people without sacrificing who we are.” [i] It requires vulnerability and it happens in those rare places where we can really be who we are without pretending. It’s one of our highest ideals at Grace Cathedral. Regardless of where we came from, what we may have done in the past, or whatever we believe now, we belong here.
Last Sunday the Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hōkūle’a, arrived at Aquatic Park in San Francisco after a dangerous journey. In the overflowing amphitheater we saw musicians and dancers; we heard prayers and proclamations from Native peoples from across the vast Pacific Ocean. I wish I could express the feeling of joy and celebration that we all shared together.
People describe Nainoa Thompson, the president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society as a Native Hawaiian master navigator but far more importantly he is one of the most significant storytellers of our time. On Tuesday night he talked about the world he was born into. In 1926 the Hawaiian culture and language were outlawed. By the 1970’s there were fewer than one hundred people who could speak Hawaiian fluently and they were mostly advanced in age.
Hawaiians had lost so much – their land, sovereignty, language, religion, culture, music, art and even sports and pastimes. It no longer felt like they belonged in their own homeland. In 1948 the Norwegian writer Thor Heyerdahl published a book called The Kontiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas. For many Hawaiians the book’s unspoken thesis was that Pacific Islanders could never have had the skill to build canoes and navigate them at will through the Pacific, but instead only arrived in Hawaii by luck on giant rafts setting out from South America.
And so in the 1970’s a group of Hawaiians sought out the last remaining navigators (Mau Pialug) and re-learned the practices of their ancestors. They built the Hōkūle’a and in 1976 they successfully traveled to Tahiti. They were utterly surprised when 17,000 people met them on their arrival in Papeete. The mood was ecstatic. The world began to see how they belonged.
But then came the fateful voyage of 1978. Unprotected in a massive storm, stacking waves overturned the canoe. One of the hulls had filled water and the entire crew sat on the remaining upturned hull at midnight getting periodically washed off by waves barely able to hear the next person over because the winds.
The legendary lifeguard Eddie Aikau began to paddle his surfboard for help into the white water of the gale. Nainoa swam over and was the last person ever to speak to him. Later the rest of the crew was miraculously rescued. Back onshore Nainoa witnessed the terrible grief of Eddie’s parents. He heard Eddie’s mother wailing. After all hope was lost he saw Eddie’s father implore everyone to call off the search for his son. For a while fear overtook him and Nainoa lost faith in his calling.
In the most pivotal moment of his life Nainoa’s father came to meet with him. They talked about values, about supporting the community and most of all about the destination – not of a particular voyage, or even of his own life, but of the Hawaiian people. Nainoa had to ask himself if he was ready to be changed.
- When the religious authorities fault Jesus for befriending tax collectors and prostitutes, he tells the story of a father who independently asks each of his two sons to work in the vineyard. The first says no, but changes his mind later and works. The second says, yes but does not follow through. The strict answer is that neither fully did the will of his father (that would have been to say yes and go). But the one who comes closest is the one who actually does the work. And for Jesus that means the sinners will enter heaven before religious leaders.
We may be familiar with the Greek word metanoia which means changing one’s mind and is frequently translated as repentance. But this is different. The word here is metamelomai. More literally it means to change one’s “cares,” to change what we consider important. It implies a kind of regret or remorse. Jesus says that obvious sinners have this in a way that the religious leaders do not. Understanding how we have fallen short makes us more willing to change our minds.
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Francis. Living off the riches of his father Francis had a reputation as spoiled but also for putting on great parties. For a while he tried to be a soldier. A serious illnesses in his early twenties made him wonder if he had to change. He dragged his feet, but then began spending time in the ruined church of San Damiano. One day he heard a voice coming from the cross. It said, “Go hence, now, Francis, and build my church, for it is nearly falling down.” He took this instruction literally and within two years had rebuilt three churches that had been falling apart.
Francis cared for impoverished people and became poor himself. He founded a movement of monks. He wrote songs. He attained notoriety for preaching to birds and to human beings. Some say that in the eight centuries since his death no one has more closely approximated the ideal that Jesus teaches.
The twentieth century writer G.K. Chesterton writes that one could never anticipate what Francis would do next. But once Francis did something, all you could say was, “Ah, how like him!” Brother Masseo once approached Francis and asked why the world followed him so ardently, when he didn’t seem especially smart, beautiful or wealthy. A friend of mine thinks it is because that while Francis chose, “a life of intense and prayerful austerity,” unlike many other saints he made being a child of God seem fun. [ii] He said, “rejoice always,” both in words and how he lived. [iii]
The most famous prayer attributed to Francis is “Oh Lord let me be an instrument of thy will.” Francis lived by emptying himself out so that God could be a continually growing part of his life. Francis told Masseo that God had chosen him precisely because he was the greatest sinner and that this reminded everyone that all good comes only from God. [iv] Emptying out his ego Francis saw a world filled with God. All people, all animals and birds, even the sun, moon, water and fire became his family. When we empty ourselves of ego nothing lies outside of the spiritual life.
So today we remember and celebrate this remarkable figure by blessing the animals we love. Over the years I have blessed dogs, cats, turtles, geese, chickens, lizards, gerbils, hamsters, mice, etc. We will also pray for the wild animals around us: the pelicans, coyotes, whales, seals, dolphins, sea lions, salmon, hammer-head sharks, red-tailed hawks, racoons, squirrels, and butterflies too.
It is a wonderful to live in a city dedicated to a person who we remember by trying to be particularly kind to animals, by in our awkward way blessing them and recognizing all the ways that they bless us. In our lifetime an uncountable number of species will be lost forever because of human activity. I have a dream that one day we will truly care for the other creatures and learn to better understand them.
Nainoa says that all storms come in pairs. When the storm hits, take your place at the helm and face into it. Be humble, pay respect, and stay with it. The second storm is the one inside of us. It is the storm of emotions. In that storm when we are tempted by hopelessness we can choose the way of faith. With God’s grace we can decide to be courageous. That is what Nainoa Thompson did.
By the end of the 1960’s after generations of being forced to fit in, a Hawaiian Renaissance in politics, art and culture began to truly unfold. We see many signs of its success. Today there are 22,500 fluent speakers of the Hawaiian language. The Hōkūle’a has been an indispensable part of an extraordinary transformation.
In the beginning I imagine Nainoa may have thought he was just building a canoe, but really what he was doing was building up a culture, a people, a promise that we can all belong. And this has grown into something even more powerful. Today the Hōkūle’a sails to unify all native peoples and to share a message, that human beings will never thrive unless the oceans do too.
How do you listen to your soul? How can you hear God’s invitation to change your mind? Nainoa Thompson and St. Francis were open to being changed by God. They learned to be humble. They dared to imagine a future when all species will be valued and preserved. May each of us conquer our ego and become an instrument of God. May we belong and our life be a blessing to the whole family of God’s creatures.
“[H]e who loves is he who has been touched by the freedom of God” Karl Barth (Romans, 498)
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D60, O25 15 Pentecost (Proper 18A) 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 10 September 2023 Congregation Sunday
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 149
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20
Matthew uses the Greek word for church (“ekklesia”) in only two places. One of them occurs in our gospel reading today. He concludes this passage about Christian community with one of my favorite lines in the Bible. Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt. 18).
“Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer” (Rom. 12).
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
- Where is God to be found? About a hundred years ago the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) wrote these words, “I find you, Lord, in all Things and in all / my fellow creatures, pulsing with your life; as a tiny seed you sleep in what is small / and in the vast you vastly yield yourself. // The wondrous game that power plays with Things / is to move in such submission through the world: / groping in roots and growing thick in trunks / and in treeptops like a rising from the dead.” [1]
Yesterday I came across an old journal from October 2000 when our son was one year old. I wrote, “Micah is drinking bathwater now. He downs it like a pot-belly’d Monday night football fan at the local tavern, stands up and then coughs.” I go on to describe finding him under the microwave eating through a plastic bag of russet potatoes (and one eighth of a potato). A page later he had learned to climb by pushing his chair against the couch and walking along the back of it tightrope style. [2]
It was a pleasure to have these moments brought back to me. God seemed so present in those days of discovery, for me as a new parent, and for Micah as a new human being. James Finley offers a vision for what he calls a “contemplative way of life,” a form of existence that recognizes God as our true center. Contemplation means really looking and paying close attention. Perhaps I had more of a chance to do this when I took care of small children. [3]
Most of what we experience we notice only in passing as we are on our way to something else. But every so often we find a reason to pause. Something catches our eye. Then suddenly we find ourselves immersed in a deeper reality. We really encounter what is in front of us: a field of spring Presidio wildflowers, the billions of worlds in the summer night sky, the seemingly infinite calm dark September waters off Point Bonita, the unexpected sound of a cricket in our city or the joy of children playing.
Although these are absolutely ordinary phenomena, in each case something has broken us out of the web of worries and judgments that usually dominate our inner lives. These moments of openness almost seem to come before thought. Suddenly we become conscious, in Finley’s words that, “we are the cosmic dance of God.” The fullness of being completely in God surprises us.
We might find ourselves wondering, what do I do now? Often nothing. Our cell phone summons us or a new version of an old worry occurs to us. But when we look back on times like these, we know that they felt like a kind of homecoming, like we belong there. Finley says that, “[W]hen you start understanding your life in light of these moments, you realize this feeling that you’re skimming over the surface of the depths of your own life. It’s all the more unfortunate because God’s unexplainable oneness with us is hidden in the depths over which we are skimming.” [4]
In our disappointment, “[W]e say to ourselves, “I don’t like living this way.”” [5] I don’t want to be separated from the place where I most experience God’s love. I want to abide with God always.
- Moses lived in an untenable political situation. The Pharaoh had ordered his people to murder all male children of the Hebrews. Moses’ parents abandoned him in a basket of reeds. The royal princess found him and raised him as her child. When Moses saw his people being brutalized he murdered a man and had to escape as a refugee. While tending his father-in-law’s sheep, a sight caught Moses’ attention.
An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a bush that was blazing and yet not consumed (Ex. 3). Moses said to himself, ”I must turn aside and look at this great sight” (Ex. 3). God describes a plan of liberation for the Israelites. Moses comically comes up with five excuses for why he thinks God has chosen the wrong person.
God reassures him, “I will be with you.” You will have what you need when you go to Pharoah. This is not enough for Moses. Finally Moses says, what if the Israelites ask your name. And God replies, tell them “I AM has sent me to you” (Ex. 3). Some interpreters suggest this is some kind of humor or a clever way that God avoids the question.
But for me this refers to that experience I described earlier, when our ego drops away and we feel united to our creator. It is the gratitude we feel for just being alive and to the one who brought us forth out of nothing. Where is God to be found? In the “I,” the “I AM,” beyond thought, deep within both our self and the world.
- I spent the first part of the summer, basically in heaven, carefully reading Volume One of Katherine Sonderegger’s Systematic Theology. The experience of Moses on Mount Horeb lies at the heart of her understanding of God. She begins with the idea that God is one, God is absolutely unique. Nothing is like God. We cannot think something that is absolutely unique. She writes, “God is concrete, superabundantly particular.” [6]
Sonderegger also points out that for this reason, the reality of God, especially for us in modern times, is hidden. She uses the word “omnipresence” to describe God. It does not just mean that God is everywhere but that, most often, we fail to perceive God. She says that nature in a sense hides God. And that in our time atheists help us to more deeply appreciate God’s hiddenness, that “even in indifference and defiance” they in a sense glorify God. [7]
It is not just that modern universities fail to teach about God, their methods have become fully secularized. She calls this “Methodological atheism” and defines it as, “the conviction that God cannot be a reality or dimension in the principled means of knowledge in the modern intellectual world.” [8] Indeed, I would not want my rheumatologist or a Federal Reserve Bank economist appealing to God in their academic papers.
Mostly this is because, “God is not an object of our thought the way that an apple is… “God does not “stand open” and static in that way to our faculties… Yet… God will stand open to our knowledge of him as Truth.” [9]
How does this happen you might ask? At this point Sonderegger compares our experience of God with our relationships to each other. Unlike inanimate objects human beings disclose themselves to us. We know that the people we meet have an inner life. They show it to us in their words and actions. Sonderegger writes, ”We must speak or give ourselves away, in gesture or act of kindness or savage cruelty or deep intimacy.” [10]
Sonderegger writes God is lord of our knowledge of him, that in humility and like human beings, God chooses to share himself with us. One of her favorite ideas is that God is compatible with the world and us. This is part of the importance of Moses’ Burning Bush for Sonderegger. God is with us.
We do not experience all of God. But God gives us a hint of transcendence in the way that the bush is burned but not consumed. God draws near and his creatures are not destroyed. God is invisible and mysterious, utterly “other” than us and yet in our midst. We know God in our inner experience.
- In all our time together I have never shared a poem that I wrote myself. This is about a walk Micah and I took when he was a one year old. It’s called “Swamp Maples.”
“In the sorrowing rain / Together we walk / Through wet autumn grass / From New England meadows / Into silent woods / And the brooding dark. // With each spongy step / I feel your weight / Shift further over / In the backpack / Until I know / You sleep.// I worry that / The damp mist / Will make you cold. / In the corner of my eye / I see your soft angel / Face under the navy hood. / Your tiny hand touches / My back just beneath the shoulder. / I listen for your breath / And want to wake you / From all death.”
“The fog brings / Everything closer in. / The yellowed ferns and / Ancient bark. / A million / Diamond drops / On the hemlock needles. / Until we leave the grasping roots / Of Pine Hill / For the burning colors of the lowlands. // We step through the swamp / On a thin crimson carpet / Of maple leaves / The gold leaf / ceiling above our heads / Burns with perfect brightness / Through the gray day. / The light illuminating / These trees / Seems to come from inside. // I stop to pray / My boots sinking / In black mud. / Thank you God / For all you have given / Us that we / Never could see before.” [11]
There is only one reason I am speaking to you today. There is only one thing I need to remind you. Seek God. Do not just skim over the surface of the depths of your own life. “Turn aside and look at this great sight.” “I Am” has sent you. So step away from the web of worries and judgments into a deeper reality, into the cosmic dance of God.
Help us find you Lord, “in all things and in all [our] fellow creatures pulsing with your life.”
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven…” (Mt. 16).
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
- Who is Jesus and what are the keys of the kingdom? Yesterday on Market Street a man wearing worn clothes and just socks on his feet walked along pushing people at random as they waited in a security line to enter Ross’ clothing store. Another man crouched in the corner of a bus stop bent over with his head at knee height repeatedly wailing from the heart as a police officer stood five feet away with a loudly barking German shepherd on tight leash. Another man was lying on the ground at Eddy and Mason his hair full of litter.
Drugs and mental illness touch nearly every person you encounter just down the hill from here. Most of the stores have left and the world seems like it is ending. This kind of feeling pervades the beginning of J.T. Alexander’s book I Am Sophia.
His science fiction novel describes a not so distant future as climate change makes the planet uninhabitable. The center of gravity for human culture seems to have shifted into outer space as investors in places like Mars support companies here in the Bay Area doing gene engineering and carbon sequestration.
San Francisco has been renamed Sanef and is one of several independent nations formed after the collapse of America. Like narcotics in our time, many people of the future have become addicted to Stims (this acronym which stands for “Sensory-Targetted Immersive Mindtech”). It is a kind of virtual reality that destroys souls. Horrifying and dehumanizing levels of inequality have become commonplace. Poor people are shunned and called lowcontributors. Sometimes they will have their minds effectively erased by the government.
Nihilistic terrorists frequently kill ordinary people with bombs. There is almost no religion of any kind. People call it metaphysics (or metafiz) and respond to it with a mixture of disdain, suspicion and fear (as many do around us today). In this anti-religious world of the future there is only one remaining Christian church in the universe. It has ten worshipers and a doubting twenty-nine year old bishop named Peter Halabi. That church is in the ruins of Grace Cathedral.
In that future time this very building has holes in the ceiling and the stained glass windows have long been boarded up. But the eleven worship faithfully every Sunday in the Chapel of Nativity. Peter worries that he will have to shepherd the church to extinction. He looks up to that same mural and the image of Mary and says, “I’m not asking… for a big miracle… Just something to let me know [God’s] still up there.” [i]
Soon a tent appears in front of the Ghiberti Doors. The homeless woman sheltered there enters the church just as Peter is about to read the lesson. She takes the book from him to read and her first words are “I am.” This seems to refer to God’s self-description at the burning bush. It is the way the gospels often describe Jesus. It is the meaning of the letters in the corners of icons. This young woman with a scar on her face walks like a dancer. She calls herself Sophia (a biblical word for the divine feminine) and for most of the book we wonder about her. Is she God, the second coming of Jesus Christ? Or is she sick, unstable and deranged. Or is she just a fraud manipulating the gullible Christians for the sake of her own agenda?
- This feels like the Gospel of Matthew. When Jesus walks on water and then rescues faltering Peter the disciples say, “what sort of man is this” (Mt. 8:27)? The crowds seem to be wondering the same thing when Jesus asks his friends, “Who do people say the Son of Man is” (Mt. 16)?
Although we have to answer this question in our lives, as readers of this gospel we stand outside the experience of those depicted in Matthew. We see what they do not. The Gospel begins with these words, “An account of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah…” (Mt. 1:1). As we read we wonder when, and which one of them, will realize who Jesus is.
This exchange between Jesus and Peter happens in Caesarea Philippi, the capital of the Tetrarchy of Philip son of Herod the Great. Herod dedicated the famous Temple there to Rome and to Emperor Augustus, whose statue stood there. He was the first emperor to add to his title: “Divi Filius” or “Son of the Divine.”
Jesus asks his friends who they say he is and Peter says, “You are the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16). Soon we see that Peter does not yet really understand what he is saying. All of us have trouble with this. We think of Jesus as simply a more powerful version of Emperor Augustus when Jesus is really overthrowing that whole way of being.
Jesus shows that the way of domination and self-aggrandizement although it seems stable and powerful on the surface is like sand. In contrast we have the path of Peter with his imperfections, his courage and fear, his insight and foolishness, but above all his faith. This improbable foundation is the rock upon which our lives can be founded. This is faith which is a kind of pursuit rather than an accomplishment.
Going on Jesus says, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven” (Mt. 16). Through history this sentence has been used to justify the church in those moments when we have been more like the Emperor Augustus than like Jesus, as if some institutional authority in Rome or Canterbury could have power over whether a person can be saved.
This could not be further from the truth. The Biblical scholar Herman Waetjen points out several other ancient examples that clarify what Matthew means. The power of the keys has to do more with things and policies than people. For instance, the historian Josephus writes about Queen Alexandra who ruled the Hasmonean Kingdom from 78-69 BCE. She deputized Pharisees as the administrators of the state and gave them the power, “to loose and to bind.” For Herman this power is about determining what practices are permitted or forbidden. [ii]
We all have a role in this. We all in our way preach the gospel through what we say and how we live. We contribute to the picture of what is acceptable. And we have a responsibility for creating the kind of society which is humane in its care for the people I saw on the streets yesterday.
The puritan theologian John Calvin (1509-1564) writes that the reason for this passage about the keys is that over history it has been dangerous to speak Jesus’ truth and it is important for us to know both that we are doing God’s work and that God stands beside us as we do. [iii]
The twentieth century theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) writes that the thought of God will always disturb the world. Our relations with each other, will never be perfectly clear. We will never adequately understand our situation in the world. That is the reason we need to orient ourselves toward the Eternal, to God. Barth says, “For the vast ambiguity of our life is at once its deepest truth… We know that our thinking of the thought of eternity is never a thing completed in time...” [iv] Our attention to Jesus, our prayer, is how we avoid being conformed to the world. It is how, instead, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ (Rom. 12).
About half of I Am Sophia takes place at Grace Cathedral and half on Mars. In the book, Sophia was terribly abused as a child but she found nourishment in the Bible and other Christian books. This made her a kind of theologian. Was Sophia the Christ? I do not want to spoil the book for you. As he finds himself falling in love with her, Sophia has a great deal to teach the young bishop, and perhaps us also.
She says, “You are the guardian of a great treasure. It is your tradition, and it has an incredible spiritual value, an almost miraculous capacity to change lives for the better. But you misplaced the keys to the treasure chest… when scripture and religion became primarily about trying to determine who was right and who was wrong.” [v]
Later she gives a kind of invocation, “May your soul have deep roots and strong wings.” [vi] This means that followers of Jesus need to have a foundation, a stable identity, but we also need room to evolve. Changes in technology and society leave modern people less rooted and more focused on wings. You see this in their emphasis on individual freedom, innovation and progress.
In contrast, many Christians regard the secular world as destructive and offtrack. This leads them to become so backward looking that they are all roots and no wings. The living, loving God of the gospel became to them static and oppressive. What does not evolve dies.
This summer’s survey and our town hall meeting this morning address consider this issue. The idea lies at the heart of our mission statement to “reimagine church with courage, joy and wisdom.” For generations Grace Cathedral has been known for this. But it is up to us if we will continue to have roots and wings.
Near the end of the novel, Sophia says to Peter, “You think strength means being untouched by the suffering we are approaching. You still do not know me…” [vii] Will San Francisco as we know it die as people self-centeredly and obsessively seek to save themselves? Will the future Grace Cathedral lie in ruins? Will the world know who Jesus is?
At the center of Grace Cathedral is not a statue of the emperor or a belief in domination and self-assertion. At the heart of our being is a living person, the living child of God. He calls us by name and offers the keys to a deeper, more humane and faithful life. Come let us follow Jesus. [viii]
[i] J.F. Alexander, I am Sophia: A Novel (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, Wipf and Stock, 2021) 7.
[ii] Herman Waetjen, *Matthew’s Theology of Fulfillment, Its Universality and Its Ethnicity: God’s New Israel as the Pioneer of God’s New Humanity* (NY: Bloomsbury, 2017) 185-7.
[iii] “It was important for the apostles to have constant and perfect assurance in their preaching, which they were not only to carry out in infinite labors, cares, troubles, and dangers, but at last to seal with their own blood. In order that they might know, I say, that this assurance was not vain or empty, but full of power and strength, it was important for them to be convinced that in such anxiety, difficulty and danger they were doing God’s work; also for them to recognize that God stood beside them while the whole world opposed and attached them; for them, not having Christ, the Author of their doctrine before their eyes on earth, to know that he, in heaven, confirms the truth of the doctrine which he had delivered to them…”
John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion ed. John T. McNeill, Tr. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960) 1213 (4.11.1).
[iv] “There is – and this is what we mean – a thinking of the thought of grace, of resurrection, of forgiveness, and of eternity. Such thinking is congruous with our affirmation of the full ambiguity of our temporal existence. When once we realize that the final meaning of our temporal existence lies in our questioning as to its meaning, then it is that we think of eternity – in our most utter collapse. For the vast ambiguity of our life is at once its deepest truth. And moreover, when we think this thought, our thinking is renewed; for such rethinking is repentance. We know too that our thinking of the thought of eternity is never a thing completed in time, for it is full of promise. As an act of thinking it dissolves itself; it participates in the pure thought of God, and is there an accepted sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable to God.”
Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 6th Edition tr. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (NY: Oxford University Press, 1975) 437.
[v] J.F. Alexander, *I am Sophia: A Novel* (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, Wipf and Stock, 2021) 60.
[vi] Ibid., 95.
[vii] Ibid., 168.
[viii] Matthew Boulton, “Who do you say that I am…”, SALT, 21 August 2023. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/8/18/who-do-you-say-that-i-am-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-twelfth-week-after-pentecost
Sunday 13 August, 2023
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14: 22-33
The Rev. Joe C. Williams, Succentor
6 August 2023
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco CA
Exodus 34:29-35
Luke 9:28-36
“… [N]either death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else… will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus…” (Mt. 13).
Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
In worship, God asks something of us: our time, our presence, our material resources; our imagination, our heart, our gifts, our loves. God calls to Abraham, who says "here I am." Abraham is not responding with GPS coordinates, but with self-offering — "Yes, you have me; all of me." Proper 8A: Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 13, Romans 6: 12-23, Matthew 10:40-42
July 2nd, 2023
“Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well” (Mt. 9).
Genesis 12:1-9
Psalm 33:1-12
Rome 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
- What is faith? This may be the most important question of our time. This week the indictment of our former president reminds us how questions of trust underlie every human relationship and institution. [i]
In 1996 Mary Doria Russell published a science fiction novel called The Sparrow. It imagines a near future in 2019 when the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program at the Arecibo Observatory discovers sung music coming from near Alpha Centauri. Jesuit priests led by the linguistics scholar Father Emilio Sandoz organize a mission to that world. They travel to Rakhat via newly invented technologies developed from mining asteroids.
With the turn of a page it is suddenly the year 2060. Sandoz seems to be the only survivor and returns to earth. Damaged physically, psychologically and spiritually he tries to answer his superior’s accusations. The reader experiences the story in parallel in two temporal settings both as Sandoz and his friends encounter a whole new form of human-like life, and much later as he explains what went wrong. It is an anthropological pleasure to imagine the language and society of the inhabitants of Rakhat. One almost wants to stop reading there before the inevitable disaster.
Emilio Sandoz grew up surrounded by drug crime in Puerto Rico and first began to be educated by the Jesuits as a teenager. He has always struggled with doubt. As the story unfolds he begins to see the circumstances that brought the team together as more than a coincidence. As he finds his place among the far more social, even herdlike, inhabitants of Rakhat they physically touch him and he discovers a new conviction about God, a kind of ecstasy that fulfills him.
This makes his disappointment so much worse when through his actions everything falls apart and he causes the death of his old friends and new ones. Near the end of the story two priests talk about Sandoz’s struggle with faith. The Father General says, “There’s an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So he breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.”
“’So God just leaves?’ John asked, angry where Emilio had been desolate. ‘Abandons creation?’ ‘No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.’ ‘Matthew 10:29… “Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’ ‘But the sparrow still falls.’” [ii]
These are two different pictures of faith. First, as a kind of disposition which is a grateful response to good things in our life. This attitude is nonetheless vulnerable to suffering that leaves us wondering whether the good outbalances the pain. Or second, faith can be regarded as the knowledge of a silent watcher, a loving but invisible companion who is with us, but constrained in the help that can be provided.
- If someone asked us to describe our faith we might say something like that. But today Matthew offers a very different and surprising kind of answer to the question “what is faith.”
My friend Matt Boulton likes to describe the Christian year as divided in half. There are six months of holidays from Advent through Epiphany, Lent and Easter. Then six months of ordinary time which begins now. He says this rhythm is like inhaling and exhaling or like the tide coming in and going out again. Ordinary, does not mean commonplace, it means ordinal as in part of a series. In this case it means a series of episodes from the Bible that teach us how to live and give us a framework for interpreting our experience. [iii]
The first eight chapters of the Gospel of Matthew describe Jesus’ birth, his later baptism, temptation in the wilderness, the calling of his followers (the fisherman on the sea of Galilee), then his first sermon and stories of healing. In chapter nine Jesus invites the one who seems to be the last of the twelve disciples, a tax collector named Matthew.
Imagine Matthew’s daily life charging taxes on goods going to market. The author of the gospel uses the word tax collector as a synonym for sinner. People hate tax collectors for three reasons. First, taxes were cripplingly high. Second, these taxes were levied by, and to pay, an occupying army that punished and crucified the local people. Tax collectors are collaborators in this oppression. Finally, tax collectors extorted more money than required and did this for the sake of enriching themselves.
Jesus immediately befriends and shares a meal with Matthew and “many tax collectors and sinners” (Mt. 9). I wonder what the other disciples thought about this. The pharisees, a group seeking to purify the religion of the time, deride Jesus for the company he keeps. Jesus does not make the argument that these people are not really sinners. Instead he says that like a physician he has come not to heal the healthy but the sick.
The first readers of this story would know about the purity rules in the books of Leviticus and Numbers in the Old Testament. It says that menstruating women were regarded as unclean and corpses were too. Anyone and anything, including furniture like beds or chairs, that a bleeding woman touched would also become unclean. [iv]
Jesus in the very act of responding to criticisms of the sinners attracted to him, is interrupted by a leader of the synagogue. This man kneels before him and begs for him to heal his daughter saying, “lay your hand on her, and she will live” (Mt. 9). As Jesus goes with all of his disciples following him a woman touches his clothes. It’s amazing that there are words spoken in the Bible that we still use today. Haimorreow is our word for hemorrhage and means to bleed. For twelve years this woman has been bleeding. For twelve years she has been unclean, isolated and literally untouchable.
We hear a little of her internal dialogue. She says to herself, “If only I touch his cloak, I will be made well” (Mt. 9). The word for “made well” is sōzō related to the word sōtēr for savior. It does not just mean to be physically healed. It means to save, preserve, heal or rescue.
Imagine the drama of this situation. An unclean woman goes through a crowd surrounding a great and holy teacher without permission, past his disciples, through the law that forbids it, and in effect desecrates him. The disciples must have been stunned and wondered what Jesus would say. Jesus does not rebuke her or criticize her actions. He loves her. He commends her boldness. Not only that but rather than taking credit for his healing power, he emphasizes her role in this miraculous healing. He says, “Take heart daughter, your faith has made you well” (Mt. 9).
When Jesus arrives at the synagogue leader’s house everyone knows that touching a dead body makes you unclean. But Jesus takes her by the hand and she gets up. The tax collector, the hemorrhaging woman and the synagogue leader come from entirely different stations of life but they teach us that faith is boldness. It is the conviction that our more daring efforts will be met by a loving God.
During Pride Month it is especially important to linger for a moment here. We also need to recognize the way that Jesus interprets scripture. Jesus is not a prisoner to a simplistic and literalist reading of ancient texts. Jesus uses one text, “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6) to interpret other texts, for instance those having to do with sinners, menstruating women and corpses. In our time we need to be more diligent in reading the Bible in ways that nurture and love LGBTQ+ and all people.
So for Matthew faith means more than just gratitude for the goodness of our existence. It refers to more than just a silent but compassionate watcher in our lives. Faith is a boldness in trusting God even when we cannot perfectly understand what is happening to us.
The theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) writes, “This is Abraham’s faith: Faith which, in hope against hope, steps out beyond human capacity across the chasm which separates God and man, beyond the visibility of the seen and the invisibility of the unseen, beyond subjective and objective possibility… to the place where he is supported only by the Word of God.” [v]
This week I received a letter from a dear friend who has been going through four terrible family tragedies this year. During the last of these tragedies he describes time moving so slowly, that his mind became his own worst enemy. He writes about being unable to pray, about screaming a bad word at the top of his lungs when he was home or in the car alone.
He says that because he has faith in God, Jesus, the church he kept coming to this place, even though it brought up a tidal wave of feeling and grief. But then he heard a setting of “Ave Maria” sung by a visiting choir. He began stopping by “Our Lady of Flowers” the photographic image of Mary, and for instant had a kind of vision in which Mary held his family member on her lap. Then in a sermon he was reminded about a dream that the Medieval mystic Julian of Norwich had. In it she held a hazelnut in her hand which represented everything God had created. She worried about its destruction. But God reassured her saying that he would draw all things to himself. My friend concluded saying, “Mary seems to be my path back to mending my relationship with God.”
What is faith? This may be the most important question of our time. May there always be the faith of gratitude for our existence. May we begin to experience God as the quiet, compassionate witness to our life. But above all, my dear ones, let us be audacious and bold in the places where we are supported only by the Word of God.
In the beginning God was everywhere and everything. Lay your hand on us and we will live. Take heart daughter your faith has made you well.
[i] Answers surround us about faith and trustworthiness, in the Senate, newspapers, laboratories and our closest relationships. In his book Faith on Earth Richard R. Niebuhr studies Luke’s question “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth.” Will human life end when no one can any longer be expected to keep their word? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/10/world/australia/trump-indictment-world-reactions.html
[ii] Mary Doria Russell, *The Sparrow* (NY: Villard, 1996) 478.
[iii] Matthew Boulton, “Go: SALT’s Commentary for the Second Sunday after Pentecost,” SALT 5 June 2023. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2023/6/3/go-salts-commentary-on-second-sunday-after-pentecost
[iv] Leviticus 12:1-8; 15:19-30 and Numbers 19:11-13.
[v] Karl Barth, *The Epistle to the Romans* translated from the sixth edition by Edwyn C. Hoskins (NY: Oxford University Press, 1975) 142.
Jesus says, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt. 28).
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D35
Trinity Sunday (Year A) 8:30 a.m. & 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 4 June 2023
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20
“Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3).
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
Matthew 28:1-10
When are you most fully alive? My friend Rhonda Magee felt fully alive when she was sixteen years old. The world was opening up, college was around the corner. Life had not been easy but she had reason to hope. Rhonda and a boy named Jake were head over heels in love. Then just before she left town for a summer university course, he told her over the phone, “My father kicked me out of the house.” She asked him why. He said, “You know why… I told you how he is. It's because of us. He said no son of his is going to be dating a black girl…” [1]
Rhonda felt gripped by pain. She was an A student and about to be chosen as the town’s Teenager of the Year. Yet her race – a category created by others and that she felt did not capture much of who she really was – made her unacceptable to Jake’s parents. They had never met her. And yet they were willing to hurt their own son, and therefore themselves, all to teach him, Rhonda and anyone else a lesson. They believed in white supremacy so strongly that they were ready to throw their own son out like garbage.
We all have beliefs like this. They diminish us and damage the people around us. The social theorist bell hooks asserts that racism in America is a crisis of “lovelessness.” Certainly the current anti-LGBTQ+ legislation illustrates the terrible lovelessness that has this country in its grip. The poverty in this city does too. But these are just a few of many stories we carry that poison our life, that prevent us from ever being fully alive.
The stories we tell about ourselves as individuals also can harm us. Even as a child the psychologist Brené Brown knew that, “People will do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power.” She realized that, “very few people can handle being held accountable without rationalizing, blaming or shutting down.” As a result, “Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it’s almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other.” [2]
We feel alive when we come home to ourselves and to God, when we can become connected in a new way to our past and to each other. This encounter, the forgiveness we experience in Jesus, lies at the heart of the resurrection. Easter is the chance for a new story to take hold in our life. It is the beginning of a new era when everyone will belong and have the chance to thrive. God’s love dares to include those who do not fit, the ones who the powerful cannot abide. [3] Through God we can be free of the hold that fear and death have on us.
No one really knows what happened at dawn that morning before Mary Magdalene and the other Mary felt the earth shaking. They saw the guards frozen like dead men by fear, watched an angel who looked like lightning come down from heaven and roll back the stone at the tomb. There is no way to make Easter fully understandable.
This does not mean it is illogical. Matt Fitzgerald remembers the Easter when his daughter was in kindergarten and the church sent each child home with a plastic purple Easter egg. Inside was not chocolate but a little slip of paper. His daughter was learning to read and so she sounded out the three word message. “He is… raisins?” “He is raisins is illogical. He is risen is merely incomprehensible.” When we speak about God we have to “distinguish between things that do not make sense and things we cannot make sense of.” [4] God cannot be contained, confined, described or defined. But we can meet God in the person of Jesus on Easter morning.
The Gospels of Mark and Luke mention anointing, but in the Gospel of Matthew the women come simply “to see” the tomb. The Greek word theōrēsai means to observe, analyze, discern with the connotation that one is involved and committed. It is related to our words theory, theoretical and theater, that onstage action which helps us to better understand human life.
After meeting the angel, the two women leave the tomb quickly with fear and great joy. Jesus greets them with a word (xairete) that means both hello and rejoice (like the word aloha means hello and love). He says, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me” (Mt. 28). He offers this message of comfort and forgiveness to friends who abandoned him.
In the second century Irenaeus said that the Glory of God is the human being fully alive. Feeling fully alive often involves an experience of joy. What is joy?
Greek has the word makarios for happiness or blessedness. It is the word repeated frequently in the beatitudes as in, “blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt. 5). The ancient Greeks regarded this kind of happiness as the freedom that rich people might have from normal cares and worries. These are the people who have good fortune, health and money. [5]
On the other hand the Greek word for joy is xara. It is related to our word Grace. It means to be fulfilled. The perfect version of xara can only found in God. The Greeks thought that this experience does not surprise us haphazardly. Rather this joy naturally comes with wisdom and virtue. To use more modern language it is the pleasure that comes with spiritual connection. We do not lose ourselves in joy – we become more deeply ourselves in it. [6]
Joy is surprisingly difficult for us. Part of the reason for this is that joy as an emotion requires us to be vulnerable. Last winter I came across a new expression for a feeling I recognize. It is “foreboding joy.” [7] It refers to that sense of hesitation we feel when it comes to joy. We don’t want to be too joyful because we are irrationally afraid that this will somehow cause something bad to happen.
Psychologists who study this say that 95 percent of parents interviewed have experienced this with their children. We hold back because we think it will make us hurt less later.
One man in his sixties said, “I used to think that the best way to go through life was to expect the worst. That way, if it happened you were prepared, and if it didn’t happen you would be pleasantly surprised. Then I was in a car accident and my wife was killed. Needless to say, expecting the worst didn’t prepare me at all. And worse, I still grieve for all of those wonderful moments we shared and that I didn’t fully enjoy. My commitment to her is to fully enjoy every moment... I just wish she was here, now that I know how to do that.” [8]
Experiencing joy means being vulnerable in love. So how do we cultivate a propensity for joy in our ordinary lives beyond a willingness to really feel joy and to let others see our weakness? The simple answer is to practice gratitude. Gratitude is not an attitude, it is not a feeling. It is something we do over and over, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. For me gratitude lies at the heart of my prayer life and what we do here.
Last week I was giving a tour of the archives when I found a sermon Alan Jones preached at Grace Cathedral in 1990. It moved me so deeply that I wanted just to read the entire manuscript to you. Alan refers to a French priest named Jean Sulivan who describes Western cultures as spiritually impoverished and undeveloped, as unawake and unaware of the miracle right in front of our noses. [9]
That miracle is the miracle of being. It is the miracle that we are. If you want a miracle look at yourself. Our life is the love story of God trying to reach us, to help us.
Have you ever wanted to meet a famous person? I always wished that I could spend a day with the nineteenth century poet Walt Whitman. He wrote a poem called “Miracles.”
“… As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, / Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, / Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, / Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge / of the water, / Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, / Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, / Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, / Or watch honey-bees around the hive of a summer forenoon… Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars / shining so quiet and bright, / Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; / These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, / The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place…” [10]
When are you most fully alive? In the face of overwhelming lovelessness, and the pain that causes more pain, there is a new story. Jesus calls us to come home to ourselves and to God. So in gratitude let us see the world with a new intent. Let us leave behind our foreboding joy and know nothing else but miracles. The Lord is risen.
[1] Rhonda V. Magee, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (NY: Penguin Random House, 2019) 11-13.
[2] Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart (NY: Random House, 2021) xx.
[3] Alan Jones, “Easter Day: Take Time for Paradise,” Grace Cathedral Sermons, 15 April 1990.
[4] Matt Fitzgerald, “Thunderous Yes: Preaching to the Easter Crowds, “The Christian Century, 10 April 2014. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-03/thunderous-yes?utm_source=Christian+Century+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dcce86669b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2023-04-03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b00cd618da-dcce86669b-86237307
[5] Ibid., 204ff.
[6] Ibid., 205.
[7] Ibid., 215.
[8] Ibid., 50.
[9] This paragraph and the next come from: Alan Jones, “Easter Day: Take Time for Paradise,” Grace Cathedral Sermons, 15 April 1990
[10] “Why, who makes much of a miracle? / As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, / Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, / Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, / Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge / of the water, / Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, / Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, / Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, / Or watch honey-bees around the hive of a summer forenoon / Or animals feeding in the fields, / Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, / Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars / shining so quiet and bright, / Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; / These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, / The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place. // To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, / Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, / Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread / with the same, // To me the sea is a continual miracle, / The fishes that swim – the rocks – the motion of the / waves – the ships with men in them, / What stranger miracles are there?”
Walt Whitman, “Miracles,” Leaves of Grass. https://poets.org/poem/miracles
“When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil asking, ‘Who is this?’” Mt. 21
Matthew 21:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14-27:66
What is God like? And how will we respond? Give me your hand and we will see. In December 1945, halfway up the Egyptian portion of the Nile River, a farmer named Muhammad ‘Alī al-Sammān made an extraordinary archaeological discovery. Thirty years later he told his story. Not long before he and his brothers avenged their father’s murder, they were digging for soil to fertilize their crops when they found a three foot high red, earthenware jar. Wondering if it contained an evil spirit, at first they hesitated to break it open. Then he had the idea that it might contain gold, so he smashed it with his axe and discovered thirteen papyrus books bound in leather. [i]
At home he dropped the books on a pile of straw by the oven. His mother used much of the papyrus along with the straw to kindle fire. A few weeks later, after killing their father’s enemy ‘Alī worried that the police might search the house, so he left the books with a local priest. For years experts tried to collect the manuscripts.
In the end they discovered fifty-two texts at Nag Hammadi. Carbon dating of the papyrus used in the bindings places these Coptic translations sometime between the years 350-400 CE. Some scholars, including my New Testament professor Helmut Koester, believe that these are translations of Greek manuscripts that may be even older than the gospels of the New Testament.
One of the first European scholars to discover the texts was startled to read the following line, “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin Judas Thomas, wrote down.” [ii] This is the opening of the first complete copy of the Gospel of Thomas ever discovered. We had fragments of it in Greek but suddenly we had the whole thing along with pages of other sources we had never dreamed of.
My favorite quotes from the Gospel of Thomas describes the kingdom of God as a “state of self-discovery.” That ancient papyrus says, “Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the sons of the living Father.” It says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” [iii]
For years all we knew about the Gnostic Christians in the first centuries after Jesus’ death came from the orthodox Christians who called them heretics. Now finally, to some degree, we can hear them speak for themselves. I first encountered these ideas at the age of twenty-one when I read Elaine Pagels’ book The Gnostic Gospels. I am attracted to their thought primarily because Jesus has changed my life and I long to learn more about what people in the first centuries thought of him. I am also sympathetic to the Gnostics’ respect for wisdom. We are often trapped in stories that make us miserable. Great thinkers can lift us into a truth that frees us.
The Greek word gnosis means a kind of knowing by experience that differs from rational or scientific knowing. [iv] It also describes an ancient faith, a family of religious convictions that shaped what we believe today. This year on Palm Sunday as we enter Holy Week rather than trying to tell the whole story of Jesus’ passion, I want to talk about this ancient faith.
We cannot be a Gnostic in the way that third century people could. But studying these ideas give us a way of talking about our tradition’s value and how we experience God in our own lives. On this Palm Sunday I am going to talk about three central gnostic ideas. But first I need to say a little more about what Gnostics believed.
Gnostic groups differed from each other but mostly they believed in a kind of dualism between the spiritual which they regarded as good and the evil material world. They held that the spiritual human soul is part of the Divine and is imprisoned in physical existence. They believed that the soul could be saved by coming to realize its greatness, its origin in a superior spiritual world. For Gnostics an inferior god or demiurge (sometimes called the god of the Old Testament) made the material world. In their upside down interpretation of the Genesis creation story, the snake was the hero. Many Gnostic Christians (the Docetists) believed that it only seemed as if Jesus suffered, or was mortal.
- The first idea that I would like to criticize is the Gnostic belief that there are secret teachings for the elite that are not available to everyone else. The Gnostic believed that, in the words of an ancient manuscript, he was, “one out of a thousand, or two out of ten thousand.” [v] This contrasts with Christians who believe that everything we need to know about God and Jesus is public. There is no hierarchy of secret knowledge, or spiritual wisdom. We can all read the Bible and with help, draw our own conclusions.
Christians go further than this. In Paul’s Letter to the Galatians he writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). This may be one of the most difficult ideas for us to assimilate. It is the basis for our democracy. We are all equal before God, and before the law. As humans we naturally form groups and are drawn into conflict based on our identity. For instance, it is very difficult to avoid the culture war tension between liberals and conservatives.
The philosopher Agnes Callard spoke about this recently at Harvard. She pointed out that the science journal Nature endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. It’s editors wanted to speak out for science and objective truth. She pointed out that in a world where everything becomes ideological this had the unintended outcome of making some people distrust science as political.
Callard said that people on the left use the same tactics as those on the right. “We bully people without knowing it. Not bullying people is harder than it appears.” Her answer is to take a Socratic approach. We should ask people to explain their position rather than trying to beat them in an argument. She says that Socrates is, “not trying to win. He’s trying to find out.” [vi]
- A second Gnostic belief is that we should focus on overcoming illusion through introspection rather than worrying about sin or morality. The important thing for the Gnostic is a relation with our true self not our neighbors. In the second century Irenaeus rejected the idea that knowledge is enough to save us. He insisted that participating and growing in Christ is a “practical, daily form of salvation.” [vii]
In the third century Clement of Alexandria writes that God became human so that humans can become God. Every day we improve. He writes about choosing to live joyously so that, “all our life is a festival; being persuaded that God is everywhere present on all sides we praise him as we till the ground, we sing hymns as we sail the sea, we feel God’s inspiration in all that we do.” [viii]
- Finally, Gnostics taught that the material world is evil. In contrast, Christians believe that God created the world and that it is good. We have a responsibility for nature. We see God through the material world. It gives us opportunities to care for each other.
Over the next seven days we will experience the implications of this belief. We will follow Jesus through the exultant crowds, witness his poignant goodbye at his last meal with friends. We will see his betrayal, abandonment death and finally his triumphant resurrection and reunion with his loved ones.
My friend Matt Boulton says that we cannot take all of this in at once. These events require time and space for us to adequately feel and understand them. [ix] Last night I received an email from one of our readers who feels overwhelmed by the passion narrative. My friend writes, “the most powerful moment that stands out for me is Jesus’ response to Judas’ kiss.” Jesus says, “Friend do what you are here to do” with no blame or shame, just a sense of love and grief.
This idea that God is present to us in the material world gives us the hope that we can change some things for the better. In an interview the poet Maya Angelou said that believing in God gave her courage. “I dared to do anything that was a good thing. I dared to do things distant from what seemed to be in my future. When I was asked to do something good, I often said, yes, I’ll try, yes, I’ll do my best. And part of that is believing, if God loves me, if God made everything from leaves to seals and oak trees, then what is it I can’t do?” [x]
What is God like? And how will we respond? There is no secret religious knowledge or a spiritual elite. Introspection will not bring us as close to God as care for those around us. The material world matters and the presence of Jesus in this world then and now is a message of hope and salvation. All our life is a festival, so bring forth what is within you and may God bless you as you walk with Jesus this week.
I would like to close with these lines from the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). “God speaks to each of us as he makes us / then walks with us silently out of the night.//These are the words we dimly hear. // You, sent out beyond your recall, / go to the limits of your longing / embody me. //Flare up like flame / and make big shadows I can move in. // Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final. / Don’t let yourself lose me. // Nearby is the country they call life. / You will know it by its seriousness. // Give me your hand.” [xi]
[i] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) xiff.
[ii] “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.” The Gospel of Thomas, translated by Thomas O. Lambdin. https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf
[iii] And later, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and female one… then you will enter [the Kingdom].” Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) 152, 154-5.
[iv] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) xvii.
[v] Ibid., 176.
[vi] Clea Simon, “In an era of bitter division, what would Socrates do?” The Harvard Gazette, 27 March 2023. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/in-era-of-bitter-division-what-would-socrates-do/
[vii] Margaret Ruth Miles, The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 33.
[viii] Ibid., 38.
[ix] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/3/29/palms-and-passion-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-palmpassion-sunday
[x] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/2/6/maya-angelou-on-being-christian
[xi] Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God tr. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (NY: Riverhead, 2005) 119.
“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done” (Jn. 4)!
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D17
3 Lent (Year A) 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Eucharist Sunday 12 March 2023
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-11
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
5 March 2023
Genesis 12:1-4a
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D14
1 Lent (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 26 February 2023
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
Often I start with a question but today I want to finish with one. Sixty years ago President John F. Kennedy, full of confidence in modern science, made two predictions. First, that within a decade a human being would walk on the moon. And second, that science would, “make the remote reaches of the human mind accessible.” At that time few people might have guessed that traveling 239,000 miles through oxygen-less -455 degree Fahrenheit outer space would be far, far easier than discovering psychiatric cures for mental illness.
In David Bergner’s book The Mind and the Moon, he shares the story of his younger brother Bob who was diagnosed with bi-polar at age twenty-one, institutionalized and medicated with drugs that had debilitating side-effects. Bergner also follows Caroline a woman from Indiana who started hearing voices as a child and whose drug treatments, starting in elementary school, led to obesity and losing control of her forearms and hands. He introduces us to a civil rights lawyer named David whose severe depression during the Trump administration could not be mitigated by either the drugs his doctor prescribed or the psychedelics he turned to afterwards.
Bergner points out how little we understand the mind. He writes about the damage that can be caused by a psychological diagnosis (which puts us in a kind of box and separates us from other people) and of many drug treatments which have questionable efficacy. Forty million American adults and millions more children are on psychiatric drugs. In one ten year period the number of children diagnosed with bi-polar increased fortyfold. Thirty to forty percent of our students are treated with psychiatric medication at some point in their college years.
I’m not trying to make a point about how we treat mental illness. I just want to remind us how much we are a mystery to ourselves. Perhaps the saddest part of Bergner’s book for me came when he quoted the prominent neuroscientist Eric Nestler. Nestler said that unquestionably fewer Americans should be on psychotropics for depression and anxiety. He went on, “Exercise. Better sleep. Mindfulness. The belief in something bigger than yourself. Religion if you are religious.” Nestler said, “People with religious beliefs benefit greatly from them.” He wondered if they fostered a, “capacity to bring order and meaning into one’s life.”
And then the sad part. He said that religion was not part of his own life. He tragically explained, “The thing about religion is, I can’t know whether Jesus is the Son of God or whether Allah rose to heaven on a winged horse. Those are not scientifically knowable.” This is an insurmountable barrier for him, and many others. Theology has failed our generation when ordinary people think that they have to believe something contrary to science in order to be religious. Christians like us have a lot of work to do in explaining this to the people around us.
The stakes are high. On Tuesday one of our daughters’ friends took his own life only months before graduating from college. From his social media posts you would never have realized that there was anything wrong. Did he understand that he is a child of God? There is no way for us to know.
This morning, the first Sunday in Lent, we have before us central biblical texts: the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and the Garden of Eden. How do these ancient stories help modern people to understand God? How do we interpret them? What meaning should they have in our life?
For Matthew wilderness is equivocal. On the one hand it has no structure and is void. On the other hand it represents limitless possibility, a context for encountering God. In ancient scripture the number forty represents a long time. This connects Jesus with other figures who persevered over time.
My friend Matt Boulton proposes an alternative to the way we usually interpret this story. For him it is not about a hero bravely resisting temptations to comfort, security and glory with admirable self-control. It is not about the devil offering something that Jesus deeply desires and Jesus gritting his teeth and responding like someone on a diet knowing that he should not have another plate of cookies. This is not about sacrifice but about trust.
Similarly the story of Eden’s forbidden fruit is not primarily about sin and disobedience or temptation, but rather about fear, and the failure to trust. Let’s begin by seeing the connection between Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and Moses.
“And Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid…” (Mt. 17).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D12
Last Epiphany (Year A) 11:00 a.m.
Sunday 19 February 2023
Exodus 24:12-18
Psalm 99:1-8
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9
Last week in an email my friend Hugh Morgan observed that when it comes to social justice the Old Testament prophets sound strikingly modern to him. He wonders if the Old Testament has a stronger social justice message than the New Testament. [1] Today we consider this question.
But first let’s define social justice as equality in wealth, political influence, cultural impact, respect… in opportunities to make a difference, to love and serve others. It involves creating a society in which every person is treated with dignity as a child of God, as bearing God’s image. Jesus calls this the realm of God. Martin Luther King calls it “the beloved community.”
Today we celebrate the Last Sunday of Epiphany. Epiphany means a shining forth. You might call it a realization that utterly transforms us. The culminating story of this season occurs on a mountain top when Jesus’ friends experience a mystical encounter with God.
In a recent conversation the law professor Patricia Williams spoke about two epiphanies that she had had. [2] For her whole life she had taken at face value family stories she had heard about her great-great-grandmother. These described her as a lazy person who was constantly fishing, as someone that no one liked. Then when Williams was in her twenties her sister discovered the bill of sale for their great-great-grandmother.
In an instant she realized the truth. At the age of eleven her great-great-grandmother had been sold away from all that she had ever known. Two years later she was pregnant with the child of the dissatisfied thirty-five year old man who had bought her. She was traumatized so alienated from his children, who were taught to look down on her, that the only thing they chose to tell her descendants was that she was unpopular. To get to the truth Patricia Williams had to interpret those two stories together and to have empathy for someone’s suffering. We have to do the same thing in order to understand the Bible.
Getting back to our question, Hugh makes a wise observation about the importance of social justice in the Old Testament. The deceased Berkeley sociologist Robert Bellah (1927-2013) wrote a book called Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. He asks about how religious belief makes large human societies possible. He notes that Israel first appears in Egyptian records in the year 1208 BCE, long before anything written in the Bible.
He points out two notable features about the social world that produced the Old Testament. First, that this it attempts to establish a society not on the role of one man as a divine king (like most Egyptian pharaohs) but rather on a covenant between God and the people. Moses is a prophet not a divine king.
The second thing he notices is that the prophets, for instance, Amos does not just condemn failures of religious ritual but the mistreatment of the weak and poor. Amos criticizes both foreigners and his own people. He writes, “Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2). [3]
At this point I feel compelled to tell you more about the Old Testament. It will be a long time before Chat GPT can write an accurate sermon. I am totally astonished by how incorrect search engine results are when it comes to some of the most basic issues in religion. This includes how we determine when these books were written. There was no journalist taking notes in the Garden of Eden or the court of David. The books of the Bible were not written in the order in which the events they record happened, or in the order in which they are presented.
One way to look at it is to see them growing up around the two ideas I just mentioned from the prophet Amos – that there is one God for all people and that God cares how the poor are treated. Scholars believe that the words of the prophet Amos were among the first in the entire Bible. So it is not as if the world was created, Noah built an ark, Abraham met God, God chose the Tribes of Israel, David’s kingdom was established, many other kings reigned and then social justice became important. Social justice, this idea of God’s universality and the dignity of every person, comes first. The other stories are ancient but put together by writers with this conviction in mind.
So the twentieth century rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls the prophets, “the most disturbing people who ever lived” and “the [ones] who brought the Bible into being.” They “ceaseless[ly] shatter our indifference.” They interpret our existence from the perspective of God. Heschel writes that the prophets have assimilated their emotional life to that of the Divine so that the prophet, “lives not only his personal life but also the life of God. The prophet hears God’s voice and feels His heart.” [4]
The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew with three main types of literature the Torah (instruction or) the law, the Nevi’im or prophets, and the Ketuvim or the writings. The New Testament was written in Greek under Roman occupation and includes totally different genres: gospels, epistles or letters, and John’s apocalyptic conclusion the Book of Revelation.
As Jesus alludes to in the Book of Matthew, the New Testament is built on the foundation of the old – that there is one God for all the nations who cares about human dignity. It has a different feeling because it is composed at a different time, under different social circumstances for a different audience. But for me it is not less focused on social justice. Christians do not worship the Bible, but the person of Jesus. Jesus is how we understand our lives and our connection to God.
We see this in today’s gospel. The story of the Transfiguration is not so much about a private mystical experience, but a meditation on Christ’s passion. It exists to shape our response to Jesus’ death on the cross. Imagine the Book of Matthew. We climb up one side through Jesus’ teaching and healing until we finally hear Jesus describe how his death will be. The disciples cannot take it in. We go down the other side to Jerusalem where Jesus will be killed. And for a reassuring moment we linger at the mountaintop.
Let me briefly tell you three things about the Greek text. Matthew uses the emphatic word idou or “Behold! Look!” three times. First, before the appearance of Moses who represents the law, and Elijah who stands for the prophets. Then again when a shining cloud appears and yet again when God says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased” (Mt. 17).
Jesus’ friends feel so afraid they fall down like dead people. Jesus tells his friends to rise up and uses the same word he does when he says that the Son of Man will be raised from the dead. Jesus touches them in a reassuring way. The Greek word hapsamenos means to touch, hold or grasp. But it also can be translated as to light or ignite a flame.
What does it mean for social justice, to have at the heart of our religion a man who gives up his life and is executed? It is not just what Jesus says that matters. He gives his life to help make real this idea that God loves every human being, that each life has innate dignity. This includes the truth that death is not the end.
Although Christians often get lost in the belief that faith is about an isolated individual’s personal salvation, there is a deep tradition of meditating on the way Jesus’ death reverses the overwhelming evil all around us. I do not have time for more examples but I would like to mention Basil of Caesarea (330-379).
In the Gospel of Luke Jesus tells the story about a rich man who has so much property that he decides to build a bigger barn to hold it all so that he can “eat, drink and be merry” (Lk. 12). That night the foolish man dies. So the fourth century Basil wrote a sermon about this. He says that what we think we need constantly changes. We are metaphorically building smaller and bigger barns all the time. When we think we need too much we cannot be generous to others.
Basil says, “How can I bring the sufferings of the poverty-stricken to your attention? When they look around inside their hovels… [and] find clothes and furnishings so miserable… worth only a few cents. What then? They turn their gaze to their own children, thinking that perhaps by bringing them to the slave-market they might find some respite from death. Consider now the violent struggle that takes place between the desperation arising from famine and a parent’s fundamental instincts. Starvation on the one side threatens horrible death, while nature resists, convincing the parents rather to die with their children. Time and again they vacillate, but in the end they succumb, driven by want and cruel necessity.” [5] The Christian tradition in every generation is filled with appeals like this. They beg us to recognize the full humanity of every person.
Let me tell you the second of Patricia Williams’ two epiphanies. When she was a child there were very few women or Black people who were judges, law professors, law partners, attorney generals, etc. Virtually all law had been written by white men. Because of this there were blind spots, basic failures to understand society that had crucial legal ramifications. [6]
Professor Williams and other intellectuals invented Critical Race Theory to address this, to help the law work for all people, not just those in power. These debates were largely for people in universities until about ten years ago. In our conversation Professor Williams expressed her surprise when she heard a powerful political consultant talk about how he had made millions of Americans fear and hate this social justice project. He had successfully convinced them to regard Critical Race Theory as divisive and dangerous to white people. He explicitly stated that increasing their anger was a means of getting their votes. [7]
The great twentieth century Jewish expert in building healthy religious congregations Edwin Friedman frequently repeats this warning. “Expect sabotage.” [8] When we are working for good, to change how things are, we will be opposed. Those who care about social justice need to understand that there will be people who actively seek to thwart it.
Patricia Williams is a prophet for me, shattering my indifference. Many here this morning are prophets to me also. Behold. Be ignited. Shine forth. Let the realization of Jesus’ love utterly transform us.
[1] Hugh Morgan, 9 February 2023. “In reading Isaiah and the minor prophets, I am struck by how modern they sound, when calling out issues of social justice. Of course, our thinking has been influenced by the enlightenment and all that came after it, so my brain may be predisposed to see these threads in the text. But they are there.
You do not see the same strength of views on social justice in the New Testament, certainly little about upsetting the then current order. And I do not think you see similar messages supporting the oppressed in Greek or Roman writings (I have a super limited sense of what these are.)
And, you do not see "social justice thought" - a very modern thing - called out, developed, emphasized from the OT texts in the early church, nor through the reformation, not even in the revivals in America and England in the late 1800s.
Two questions to ponder
-
Where did the social justice message in the OT come from?
-
Are there strains of this message in church history that I / we are not aware of?”
[2] Patricia J. Williams on the Grace Cathedral Forum, 1 February 2023. https://youtu.be/8h-xHY7OIuY . Also see Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991) 17-19.
[3] Robert Bellay, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). Quoting Michael Walzer and David Malo on a covenant between the people and God (310f). Amos’ ethical statements (302).
[4] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets: An Introduction, Volume One (NY: Harper, 1962) ix-26.
[5] “How can I bring the sufferings of the poverty-stricken to your attention? When they look around inside their hovels… [and] find clothes and furnishings so miserable… worth only a few cents. What then? They turn their gaze to their own children, thinking that perhaps by bringing them to the slave-market they might find some respite from death. Consider now the violent struggle that takes place between the desperation arising from famine and a parent’s fundamental instincts. Starvation on the one side threatens horrible death, while nature resists, convincing the parents rather to die with their children. Time and again they vacillate, but in the end they succumb, driven by want and cruel necessity.” Basil of Caesarea, “I Will Tear Down My Barns.” Tr. Paul Shroeder. Cited in Logismoi. http://logismoitouaaron.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-social-justice-by-st-basil-great.html
[6] Professor Patricia J. Williams and I talked about “stand your ground” laws that result in much higher rates of death among Black men, because white people are more likely to be afraid of them.
[7] In an online interaction I heard from someone who is monomaniacally focused on the idea that Critical Race Theory must necessarily involve government forced discrimination against white people. He did not have the time to see the Patricia Williams interview. He had already made up his mind.
[8] “Sabotage is part and parcel of the systemic process of leadership.” Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (NY: Church Publishing, 2017 revised).
Grace Cathedral is honored to welcome the Rt. Rev. Deon K. Johnson, the 11th Bishop of Missouri, and the first Black gay bishop in The Episcopal Church, to the pulpit. Bishop Johnson is passionate about justice and human dignity and reflecting those commitments in the church’s liturgy. Bishop Johnson has been a fierce advocate for LGBTQ inclusion and led nonviolent protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Most recently, he is among the 13 faith leaders to sue the State of Missouri to challenge its abortion ban.
“[N]ow we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit that is from God” (2 Cor. 2:1).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D9
5 Epiphany (Year A) 11:00 a.m.
Sunday 5 February 2023
Isaiah 58:1-9a
Psalm 112:1-9
2 Corinthians 2:1-12
Matthew 5:13-20
You are the salt of the earth. At 6:00 p.m., at the height of the century’s worst winter storm, I put on waterproof biking pants and a jacket to go walking in the darkness. Rain poured down in sheets. In the Presidio forest, along the ridge, 60 knot gusts of wind tore through the Monterey Cypress and Eucalyptus trees. It sounded like a deafening freight train. As debris landed all around I felt nagging fear but also awe in the face of such power and beauty, in the presence of God. I could see no sign of another living soul except for a single light far offshore in thirty foot swells outside the Golden Gate.
This week I gradually began to understand the news. Our seminary, the Church Divinity School of the Pacific will be closing its classrooms for in person learning and most likely selling their property (which lies across the street from the University of California, Berkeley).[i] The university motto Fiat Lux, means “let there be light.” And today I want to begin by expressing what a great light our seminary has been for me during my whole adult life.
I remember going to Thursday evening community eucharists there during the ferocious El Nino storms of my first year in college. As an eighteen year old I loved the Episcopal Church. Berkeley with its four Episcopal churches, two break-away churches, a university chaplaincy, a kind of Anglican newspaper (called the New Oxford Review) and seminary seemed like heaven to me. I have fond memories of studying in the Graduate Theological Library from the time it first opened.
My college chaplain Peter Haynes had us meet in the seminary parking lot to drive together for my first retreat at the Bishop’s Ranch. The people in this setting profoundly shaped my faith as a guide to a compassionate, generous, beautiful, uniting, and thoughtful way of being. This faith opened me to the experiences of people of different backgrounds, even of different religions and of no religion. This faith also grounded me in traditions that connect us to our deepest humanity.
Before long I was kneeling on the warm red carpet at St. Clement’s Church in Berkeley and getting ordained as a priest. Soon after that I began participating in monthly Faculty Clergy lunches. John Kater first introduced the idea of online learning to us a year after the invention of the world wide web.
For twenty years I participated in Pacific Coast Theological Society meetings at the seminary with Owen Thomas, Patricia Codron, Huston Smith, Herman Waetjen.[ii] I cherish my clergy colleagues who were educated there and their teachers. I can see in my mind’s eye the busy brick refectory at lunchtime with students and teachers from across the country engaged in friendly talk on a fall day as the liquid amber tree leaves outside the windows burst into an impossibly beautiful redness.
You may be getting a sense for the heartbreak I feel about our seminary, that with others I am mourning its loss. This brings us to one of Jesus’ most important lessons about how to live, known in the Gospel of Matthew as the Sermon on the Mount. Let me briefly talk about the central elements of Jesus’ teaching and then introduce a psychologist and two theologians who give us further insights into its meaning.
Today we hear the second part of the Sermon on the Mount. It begins with Jesus saying “blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers” (Mt. 5). Jesus does not say that one thing leads to the other as if we should somehow try to be poor in spirit in order that we might be blessed. No, Jesus speaks to US. We are the people who mourn, the humble ones frustrated by injustice, longing for goodness and mercy.
Indeed Jesus says to us this morning, “YOU are the salt of the earth… YOU are the light of the world.” The Greek word “you” is plural. It involves all of us. It is imperative to notice that Jesus is not asking us to change who we are. We are already what we need to be. We do not have to become something entirely new. We just need to learn how to magnify the goodness we already possess.
For this metaphor Jesus chooses things that in small quantities have a massive effect. A tiny bit of salt brings out the flavor of a large meal. You are that salt, enriching the banquet for everyone. A single candle flame can be seen from 1.6 miles away. It takes half an hour to walk the distance to that tiny light that might guide someone home.
So again Jesus is not saying that this is a cause and effect relationship, that by doing something good you become blessed. This is not a matter of punishment or reward. You already are blessed, so make the most of it! In an often cited passage Marianne Williamson writes, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?” “You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”[iii]
- In 2009 I attended a training in Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communications. It changed my life.[iv] Rosenberg asserts that we all have a kind of light or energy or life that animates us. We have needs that we often do not understand for food, safety and love. Instead of trying to compel others, to force them to do we want, we should instead learn to state our need and then ask them for help. We do this knowing that all human beings have a deep longing to be of service to others.
This all begins with seeing that light in other people. And this requires that we learn to quiet the critical voice that judges others and ourselves (Rosenberg calls the jackal). He recommends that instead of using judgment words (like “you are always late”) or presuming that we know what another person is thinking, we should learn the gift of the question. We need to learn how to simply ask what another person needs. Instead of an inner life in which we criticize ourselves we need to ask ourselves what we need.
- Today at the Forum I talked with my favorite teacher Margaret Miles about her newest book on how the third century theologian St. Augustine of Hippo (345-430 CE) changed in his old age. Quite often we quote his words when we invite everyone to the communion table saying, “Be what you see. Receive what you are.”[v] This is almost a riddle with the answer – the body of Christ. It reminds us that we are God’s children. We are salt and light, even when we may not feel very close to God.
Augustine talks about the difficulty of believing in miracles and what our bodies will be like in the resurrection. He says that these ideas matter only as much as they influence how we live now. In his prayer addressed to God he says that we are not only, “instructed so as to see you… but also so as to grow strong enough to hold you, and the one who cannot see you for the distance, may yet walk along the road by which he will arrive and see you and hold you…” To us he says, ”Walk without fear, run, but stay on the road… do not stand still, do not turn back, do not get sidetracked… Any who find that they may have gone astray must return to the road and walk on it, and any who find they are on the road must go on walking until they arrive.”[vi]
- One of my favorite writers of our generation is the gay English Roman Catholic theologian James Allison. The Stanford University professor René Girard (1923-2015) deeply influenced him. Girard taught that all human societies have what he calls the scapegoat mechanism. We covet, that is we want what other people have, this leads to instabilities and social tensions. These in turn are resolved by punishing or banishing an individual or group. We fix our social problems by blaming others. According to Allison and Girard, Jesus overturns the scapegoat mechanism and makes possible the realm of God in which all people are loved.
In my clergy group I heard the following story about James Alison. For many years he lived in Brazil. But not long after moving to Spain, a Brazilian bishop began a long and ultimately successful process of removing Alison from the priesthood. This was heartbreaking new for Alison. Then one day he received a phone call. The voice on the other end of the line told him that it was Francis, Pope Francis. Alison felt sure that it had to be a friend playing a trick on him until a number of questions fully established that this was the actual pope and that he was giving him the “power of the keys” and effectively reinstating him as a priest.[vii]
As a gay man Alison was himself scapegoated but his light shines too brightly to be diminished. He does not hide. I give thanks for Augustine’s reminder to stay on the road to God even when our father seems so far off. I give thanks for Marshall Rosenberg’s reminder that our critical inner voice makes it hard to see the light in others. Above all, I am so grateful for the compassionate, generous and thoughtful light of the people associated with our seminary. They contributed to the faith that has guided me to this day.
That night a few weeks ago out in the storm. I encountered God. Looking at that lonely light on the ocean reminded me of one of the kids named William Hoyt who came to my ordination at St. Clement’s Church in Berkeley. His dad was a nuclear physicist and his mom a partner in a prestigious law firm. William grew up to be the captain of a tugboat. I wondered if he was out there in the storm, if it was his light that was going to guide someone home that night.
In the deafening freight train storm that surrounds us your light shines in this way also. Give the gift of the question. Do not turn back. Be what you see, receive who you are. You are the salt of the earth.
[i] “CDSP Announces Shift to Fully Hybrid Education Model.” CDSP 31 January 2023. https://cdsp.edu/2023/01/cdsp-announces-shift-to-fully-hybrid-education-model/
[ii] I first met Norman Gottwald, Bob Russell, Ted Peters, Durwood Foster, Philip Clayton, Mark Graves, Darren Erisman, Sharon Burch, Scott MacDougall and dozens of other friends at Pacific Coast Theological Society.
[iii] Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/928-our-deepest-fear-is-not-that-we-are-inadequate-our
[iv] Ursula, “Nonviolent Communications Workshop,” Christ Episcopal Church, Los Altos, 29 April 2009. Notebook page 134. See also Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communications: Create Your Life, Your Relationships, Your World in Harmony with Your Values. Audiobook. https://sfpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S93C2415756
[v] St. Augustine. “If you are Christ’s body and members, it is your mystery that is placed on the table of the Lord, it is your mystery that you receive… Be what you see and receive what you are.” Catholic Digest. https://www.catholicdigest.com/from-the-magazine/quiet-moment/st-augustine-if-you-are-christs-body-and-members-it-is-your-mystery/ Mary Carter Greene’s translation: "Behold what you are. Become what you receive.”
[vi] From Margaret Ruth Miles, Beautiful Bodies (Forthcoming). Augustine, Confessions 7:21 and En ps. 31, tr. Maria Boulding, Essential Expositions of the Psalms (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2015) 319-20.
[vii] I heard this story on different occasions from Donald Schell and Pat Kiefert. Some clarifying elements might be found in James Alison’s Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Alison
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear” (Ps. 27)?
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D6
3 Epiphany (Year A) 11:00 a.m. & 6:00 p.m. Eucharist
Sunday 22 January 2023
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 4-9
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23
What new season of life are you entering? How will you need to change? What relationship will you have with God?
“You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D2
2 Epiphany (Year A) 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 15 January 2023
Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40:1-12
1 Cor. 1:1-9
John 1:29-42
The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ
Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-17
Human beings are embarrassed because we are attached to our own notions of rank, order and decorum, and God, frankly, has other ideas and plans. John would have prevented Jesus from being baptized, but Jesus responded: no, "this is how we fulfill all righteousness." What God in Christ commends to us is not the exultation of stature, but service. Putting on the garments of baptism, together we can do and be a new thing to the glory of God, and for the good of all creation.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2C54
Christmas Eve (Proper 1) 11:00 p.m. Eucharist
Saturday 24 December 2022 (also preached a L&C at 4:00 p.m.)
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Imagine your existence as an hourglass, the bottom globe filling with sand until the time appointed for your life has ended. We do not know how much sand the top globe holds, how much time we have left. On this holy night when we do not have to pretend let me ask this. How are you doing? I am not talking about what you have accomplished, whether you met your expectations. I ask about your well-being.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2C53
Christmas Eve (Proper 1) 4:00 p.m. Lessons and Carols
Saturday 24 December 2022 Also preaching at 11 p.m.
Mt. 2:1-1, Jn. 1:1-18
Lk. 2:1-7, Lk. 2:8-20
Isa. 7:10-14, Lk. 1:26-38
Gen. 1:1-5, Isa. 35:1-10
Merry Christmas! When I have to say something difficult or controversial from this pulpit I often look up and draw courage from this stained glass window of the warrior St. Martin. It reminds me of the people at St. Martin’s Church in Davis, California. Growing up as a boy they took me seriously. They taught me about God’s love in words and action. They gave me a chance to help and valued whatever contribution I made.
Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2C51 2 Advent (Year A) 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 4 December 2022
Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
Are There Reasons to Have Hope? An Introduction to the Gospel of Matthew
“Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that… by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15).
- Let me speak frankly. I see you might be the, “sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less young, who live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences: from sermons, from people, from journeys, from events, from what tomorrow has in store.”
“But not you. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst. This is the conclusion you have reached, in your personal life and also in general matters, even international affairs. What about [sermons]? Well, precisely because you have denied it in every other field, you believe you may still grant yourself legitimately this youthful pleasure of expectation in a carefully circumscribed area like the field of [sermons], where you can be lucky or unlucky, but the risk of disappointment isn’t serious.”[1]
The twentieth century novelist Italo Calvino (1923-1985) wrote these words about books and I begin here because it is human nature to be wary about hoping too much. We have been disappointed enough in the past to wonder, are there reasons to have hope?
I have been reading several recently published books by authors who do not believe in God. I’m grateful to have this chance to walk with them and to try to see the world from their perspectives. Last week I finished reading Kieran Setiya’s book Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way. His last chapter describes hope as, “wishful thinking.” He goes on to say, “In the end, it seems, there is no hope: the lights go out.” And later in a slightly more positive vein he says, “We can hope that life has meaning: a slow, unsteady march towards a more just future.”[2]
The other book is William MacAskill’s What We Owe the Future about how we might try to prevent the collapse of human culture from threats like nuclear war, engineered pathogens, and runaway Artificial General Intelligence. He points out the massive amount of suffering among human beings and animals. He uses a scale from -100 to +100 to measure the lifetime suffering or happiness of an abstract person and wonders if, because of the total amount of suffering, life is even worth living.
By the way the question “does life have meaning,” is not something that we see in ancient writings or even in the medieval or early modern period. The phrase, “the meaning of life” originates only 1834.[3] Before that time it did not occur to ask this question perhaps because most people assumed that we live in a world guided by its creator.
Although these books might seem so different they share a common spirit. First, you may not know what to expect but it will be a human thing. There is no help for us beyond ourselves. Second, they exaggerate the extent to which human beings can comprehend and control the world. Third, they fail to recognize that there are different stories for understanding our place in the universe and that these have a huge influence on our fulfillment. Well-being is in part subjective: we have to decide whether to accept our life as an accident, or to accept it as a gift. Finally, these authors lack a sense that human beings have special dignity or that we might experience God as present with us.
In my Forum conversation with Cornel West the other week he mentioned how much he loved Hans-Georg Gadamer’s book Truth and Method. It’s about the importance of interpretation in human consciousness and begins with a poem from the twentieth century Austrian writer Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). “Catch only what you’ve thrown yourself, all is mere skill and little gain; / but when you’re suddenly the catcher of a ball / thrown by an eternal partner / with accurate and measured swing / towards you, to your center, in an arch / from the great bridgebuilding of God: / why catching then becomes a power - / not yours, a world’s.”[4]
- How do we catch the world God is offering to us? This morning I am going to discuss an interpretation of the Book of Matthew by my friend the biblical scholar Herman Waetjen. I am not trying to communicate facts to you or to explain something. I long to open a door so that you might experience the truth of hope, the recognition that at the heart of all reality lies the love of God.
Today is the second Sunday in the church calendar. Over the next twelve months during worship we will be reading through the Gospel of Matthew. Scholars say that 600 of the 1071 verses in it, along with half of its vocabulary come from the Gospel of Mark. An additional 225 verses come from a saying source and other oral traditions.[5] And yet this Gospel is utterly original. Although the first hearers are highly urban people living in the regional capital of Antioch, really Matthew speaks directly to us.
In the year 70 CE a catastrophic event threatened to obliterate the entire religion of the Jews. Roman forces crushed an uprising in Jerusalem destroying God’s earthly residence, the temple, and many of the rituals and traditions that defined the Jewish religion. Without the temple a new way of being religious had to be constructed. Let me tell you about three alternative visions for the faith from that time.
First there was the way of the Pharisees led by Yohanan ben Zakkai (50-80 CE). Legend held that he had been secreted out of Jerusalem during the destruction in a coffin. HE then made an arrangement with Roman authorities to remain subject to them but with limited powers of self-government.
Zakkai asserted that the study of Torah was as sacred as the Temple sacrifices. “He substituted chesed (kindness or love) in place of the demolished temple.”[6] God can be at the center of people’s lives through “a reconciliation that is realizable through deeds of mercy that are fulfilled by observing the law.”[7] Waetjen asserts that the Gospel of Matthew criticizes this vision because it leads to a distinction between righteous (moral) people who are clean and sinful outsiders.
A second solution to this religious crisis comes from apocalyptic literature about the end of the world, especially the Second Book of Baruch. This author writes about the Babylonian destruction of the Jewish Temple in 487 BCE. In his vision an angel descends to the Temple, removes all the holy things and says, “He who guarded the house has left it” (2 Baruch 8:2). The keys are thrown away almost as if it was de-sanctified. According to this view,“in the present the temple has no significance.” But in the future it will be renewed in glory through the power of God. So the people wait for God’s return.
Although Matthew is aware of both these answers to the religious crisis he chooses a third way beyond a division between clean and unclean people, or simply waiting for a new Temple. Matthew writes that Jesus as Son of David comes out of a particular people, with its history, etc., but Jesus is also a new creation which Waetjen translates as the Son of the Human Being.[8]
We see this dual anthropology in the Hebrew bible with its division of soul/self (or nephesh) and flesh (basar). In Greek this is soul/self (psyche) and body (soma). Jesus says, “Do not continue to fear those who kill the body (soma) but cannot kill the soul; but rather continue to fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Mt. 10:28).
In a physical body Jesus is born in Bethlehem as part of the Jewish community where he teaches and heals those who come to him. Jesus also exists also as soul, as the divine breath that gives all creatures life, as the first human being of the new creation, as one who shows God’s love for every person. He teaches that at the heart of all things lies forgiveness and grace. There are no people defined by their righteousness or sinfulness. At the deepest level of our existence we are connected to each other and to God.
The novelist Marilynne Robinson writes about how in modern times some people claim that science shows that there are no non-material things, that we do not have a soul. In contrast she writes about our shared intuition that the soul’s “non-physicality is no proof of its non-existence… [It is] the sacred and sanctifying aspect of human being. It is the self that stands apart from the self. It suffers injuries of a moral kind, when the self it is and is not lies or steals or murders but it is untouched by the accidents that maim the self or kill it.”
She concludes writing, “I find the soul a valuable concept, a statement of the dignity of a human life and of the unutterable gravity of human action and experience.”[9]
Can we have hope? Does life have meaning? Let me speak frankly. I see you might be the “sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything.” But you have a soul. God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. At the heart of all reality exists the love of God. The more thankful we are, the more we receive the gift of hope.
My last words come from a poem by Mary Oliver called “The Gift.”
“Be still, my soul, and steadfast. / Earth and heaven both are still watching / though time is draining from the clock / and your walk, that was confident and quick, / has become slow.// So, be slow if you must, but let / the heart still play its true part. / Love still as you once loved, deeply / and without patience. Let God and the world / know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.”[10]
[1] Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller tr. William Weaver (London: Vintage Classics, 1981) 4.
[2] Kieran Setiya, Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way (NY: Riverhead Books, 2022) 173, 179, 180.
[3] “The meaning of life” first appears in Thomas Carlyle’s novel Sartor Resartus. Ibid., 153.
[4] Rainer Maria Rilke, “Catch only what you’ve thrown yourself” in Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd Revised Edition tr. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (NY: Crossroad, 1992).
[5] Herman Waetjen, Matthew’s Theology of Fulfillment, Its Universality and Its Ethnicity: God’s New Israel as the Pioneer of God’s New Humanity (NY: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017) 1-17. See also, https://www.biblememorygoal.com/how-many-chapters-verses-in-the-bible/
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesed
[7] Ibid., 2.
[8] Ibid., 7.
[9] Marilynne Robinson, The Givenness of Things: Essays (NY: Picador, 2015) 8-9.
[10] https://wildandpreciouslife0.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/the-gift-by-mary-oliver/
The Invisible Beauty
“Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Lk. 24).
Forms of beauty exist that we are only dimly aware of. So much happens that we fail to notice. We never experience some of the most beautiful phenomena in nature.
Have you ever been in the Pacific Ocean and seen the sun rise over the continent? The light creates a brilliant golden path over the water that seems to go right to you. Under certain conditions, when you are far out beyond the impact zone, air gets trapped in large exploding waves creating a brilliant, short-lived shower of spray and a rainbow.
When you really know the water, the texture of the ocean surface reveals currents and eddies that help you to find safety. And on a few days in your lifetime the gray of the sky will perfectly match the gray of the water and the rain will fall in such a way that it seems like a million drops of water are frozen midair just above the surface.
Surfing on certain fall days at Ocean Beach the wind blows offshore, the wave doubles up and pitches over your head so that you are encased in smooth walls of emerald green. As the wave collapses behind you spray engulfs you and you are spit out back into the regular world again. I wish so dearly that I could communicate what it feels like to be riding a wave and see a dolphin just below the surface doing the same thing.
Because of grief the disciples fail to see the most beautiful thing of all. They fail to see God in the presence of their friend Jesus. Today I especially understand this feeling. Mike Lawler was one of my dearest friends, the one who helped me to see all of what I just described, the generous soul who taught me to surf. Two days ago I learned that he died. At surprising times I keep finding myself emotionally overwhelmed.
Mike was a six foot five inch, 220 pound contrarian bull and the world was his China shop. He dropped out of college to pioneer surfing on the Northshore of Oahu. He was not shy about confronting over-educated people who were full of hot air. He was a literary roofing contractor. He said, “I used to write sermons when I was shingling roofs, alone with my thoughts and the rhythm of a hatchet whacking nails into cedar shakes.”
We spent hundreds of hours together driving to the beach in his pickup truck. It smelled strongly of wetsuit neoprene, surf wax, and cigar that he later told me he smoked so that his car didn’t smell like marijuana. We talked about creativity, painting, science, Martin Heidegger, Werner Erhard and the sixties. He taught me about the culture, art, physics, meteorology, history, ethics, sociology and technique of surfing. He introduced me to the pleasure of old-fashioned donuts and that is what I crave now after every surf session.
Each All Souls Requiem at Grace Cathedral feels so different, because nothing seems more particular, more specific than the loss of someone we love. And each year that loss feels different.
Today we carry with us the joy of being together after the pandemic but also the weight of so many funerals we have been hosting this fall to honor the many people who died over the last three years. We have had so many more losses as a community I hesitate to even name anyone. Who can imagine life here after Dare’s death last week?
On Wednesday Chris Keady and I talked about the feeling of Mozart’s requiem. Mozart (1756-1791) composed this as he himself was dying and the music conveys a sense of frustration and anger at our limits as human beings. It expresses anxiety about whether we will be forgiven for the damage that we have done. Mozart is not afraid to encourage us to face our sadness. And with the tension and disappointment we also encounter what is beautiful, what we have not yet noticed.
The theologian David Bentley Hart writes that, “what is most mysterious and exalted is also that which, strangely enough, turns out to be most ordinary and nearest to hand, and that which is most glorious in its transcendence is also that which is humblest in its wonderful immediacy… we know far more than we are usually aware of knowing…”
The modern twentieth century French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) spent nine months in a World War II German prisoner of war camp composing “Quartet for the End of Time.” It uses the four musical instruments that were available there (Piano, Cello, Violin, Clarinet). He saw such suffering and had every reason to surrender to cynicism. But instead he was fond of paraphrasing Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) reminding us that, “God dazzles us by an excess of truth.” He writes, “Certain people are annoyed that I believe in God. But I want people to know that God is present in everything, in the concert hall, in the ocean, on a mountain, even on the underground.”
The ancient theologian St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-339) believed that death and evil ultimately cannot hinder us in moving toward God. Hart summarizes his theology writing, “Creation is… a partaking in the inexhaustible goodness of God; and its ceaseless flow of light and shadow, constancy and change… while the restless soul, immersed in the spectacle of God’s glory, is drawn without break beyond the world to the source of its beauty, to embrace the infinite.”
My tough, impermeable, sometimes obnoxious surfing friend Mike Lawler believed this. He was so proud of being a lifelong Episcopalian. The disciples walked many miles without recognizing Jesus and I did the same when I walked with Mike.
A few years ago he wrote a December letter to me from his home in Hawaii about his own death. He said death used to seem so far off “to be no bother.” And then he quotes Joan Didion whom he describes as an Episcopalian (from her book The Year of Magical Thinking).
Didion writes, "We are not idealized wild beings. We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we are mourning, for better or worse, ourselves. As we were we are no longer. As we will one day be not at all… as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be."
Mike closes his letter with these words, “My life has been partly molded by having lost a little sister when I was about thirteen. You are afraid to love [because those you] love will die. I wish there was a way to get over the fear… but this is not a conversation for Advent… The ocean was calm and glassy tonight as the spangled sun made you look and love the world. Your sermon touched me as no other. Love, Mike.”
Forms of beauty exist that we are only dimly aware of. We are drawn beyond the world to the source of its beauty.
Job 19:21-27a
Canticle 9
Luke 24:13-35
“Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to [God] all of them are alive” (Lk. 20).
Haggai 1:15b-2:9
Psalm 149
Luke 20:27-38
What happens after you die? Jesus cares so intensely about the present moment that he does not say much about this, except that our fear of death influences how we live.
As a freshman at Harvard College my old teacher Cornel West hung two pictures on his wall: Malcolm X and Albert Einstein. His roommate James Brown, (not the singer but the man who later became the famous sports journalist) asked him, “I thought you were more of a Martin Luther King type.” Cornel replied, “I am but one doesn’t cancel out the other. I’m loving them both, just the way they both loved us.”1
In his second year The Nation of Islam came to Harvard and black students packed the hall. “Hefty Fruit of Islam guards, the paramilitary wing of the Nation [were] stationed at all the doors.” It had only been six years since Malcolm X’s assassination and when the speaker referred to Malcolm as a dog, Cornel felt startled. The speech went on. When the speaker did it again, Cornel moved to stand up and reply but his friends restrained him.
Finally, the speaker called Malcolm X a dog one more time and Cornel leapt up. He said, “Who gives you the authority to call someone who loved black people so deeply a ‘dog’?” After a brief exchange the speaker said to the 18 year old Cornel. “Young brother, you’ll be lucky to get out of this building alive. And if you do manage to slip out, you’ll be gone in five days.” In his memoir Cornel writes, “from there, it got worse. The crowd went dead silent…” as everyone looked at him. Friends had to negotiate with the guards and then escort him out of the building.
For the next week Cornel went underground going from dorm room to dorm room, too afraid to attend class, hardly sleeping. Finally he went to talk to someone in the Nation. They began by arguing but then Cornel really began to listen, to listen from the heart. For hours they had a wonderful conversation because they gave each other “space to be heard.” His new friend told him he didn’t need to be afraid anymore.
Intense conflict, fear and looming death characterize the atmosphere as Jesus takes up a debate with leaders of the temple. After a long journey to the capitol Jesus arrives in triumph to cheering crowds who wave palm branches. Jesus weeps over the terrible future of Jerusalem. He angrily drives out people who are selling things in the temple. Then he returns there every day to share the good news with the “spellbound” crowds.
Behind the scenes the authorities, “[keep] looking for a way to kill him” (Lk. 19:47). But Jesus’ popularity protects him and so the religious leaders try to discredit his teaching. They want to embarrass him, to get him tangled up in his own words, to provoke him to say something offensive that they might use against him. They have three different debates, the first one about authority, the second on taxes and our story this morning about the resurrection.
Remember, Jesus is only days away from being killed on the cross. The tension and fear among his friends cannot be understated. Jesus wisely avoids the traps that his persecutors set for him. In fact he changes this antagonism into a chance for genuine learning to happen. He is teaching both the people who love him and those who hate him so that some of his enemies even say, “Teacher, you have spoken well” (Lk. 20).
In those days Sadducees were part of the upper class and had an influential role in the temple’s worship.2 They differ from the Pharisees, Jesus and the authors of the Gospels in two main ways. First, they do not believe in resurrection, or any life after we die.
And second, they were convinced that only the first five books of the Bible were authoritative scripture.3 I have known this for thirty years and do not completely understand what it means. I often wonder what did they make of the psalms and prophets, for instance? In any event apparently in those days it was commonly believed that the first five books did not include references to the resurrection in the way that the other biblical books did.
The question they use to entrap Jesus has to do with an ancient cultural practice described in the Book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 25:5-10) called “levirate marriage.” The word levir is Latin for a husband’s brother. The idea is that when a woman’s husband dies, his brother will marry her, they will have children and those children will carry on the deceased person’s name.
So in order to make Jesus stumble in his defense of resurrection, the Sadducees ask what would happen if each of seven brothers married one woman and all died childless. Whose wife would she be in the resurrection? It’s what a friend of mine who is a lawyer
would call a gotcha question. Their goal is to make the idea of resurrection seem absurd and to expose Jesus as a fake.
But Jesus has a brilliant answer. He says in essence. “You mistakenly assume that the cultural conventions of our time will continue to determine our lives in the coming age of resurrection. Unlike today in that time beyond death we will neither marry nor be given in marriage. We will not be able to die anymore.”4
Why does Jesus refer to death here? Greek uses two different words for “to marry” and “to be given in marriage.” In that world of the Bible men marry and women are given in marriage. Jesus looks at the marriage arrangements of his time as a way of dealing with the insecurity that follows death, almost as a kind of insurance policy.
Since in the next world there will be no more death, a widow will no longer need a new husband or a child to provide for her. At that point she will not be someone’s wife, or someone’s property. She will simply be a child of God, a child of the resurrection.
Jesus declares that in the resurrection, we will not have power over other people. No one will have power over us. We will all be free. If this were not enough he even goes on to give the Sadducees a reason for why they might change their mind and experience the liberating influence of the resurrection. He gives them an idea taken from the portion of the Bible that they regard as authoritative.
When Moses experiences God after seeing a bush that is burning but not consumed by flame. God tells him, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Ex. 3:6), not “I WAS the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” In that time when Jesus was surrounded by death and the fear of death he says that God is, “God not of the dead, but of the living; for to God all of them are alive” (Lk. 20).
And so today we experience again the way of Jesus. He does not hate or attack his enemies. He listens from the heart. He firmly responds to their arguments in the way that my teacher Cornel west did as college sophomore. Jesus wins them over with love so that they say, “Teacher, you have spoken well.”
Jesus also warns us to be careful of expecting God to be limited by our cultural conventions and our intelligence. Even in our moments of greatest imagination, we cannot grasp the beautiful mystery of the holiness that is our deepest desire.
And yet we have these moments of insight. Do you ever feel as if someone you loved but has died is near? Your intuition may be right because, to God “all of them are alive.”
Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day by baptizing fifteen people into the church. They will join this mystical community of people who are liberated from the fear of death and straining to live in love. They will be joining you and me, and all the people of all times and places who are still alive in God.
What happens after you die? Jesus cares so much about the present moment that he does not say much about this, except that our fear of death does not have to constrain how we live and that one day we will be free of the social structures that diminish us. Jesus might ask, “Whose poster would you put up on your dorm room wall? Who would you be willing to stand up for and defend in public even at the risk of your life?”
Let us pray: You know our hearts O God, you see the challenges we face. Help us to listen from the heart and give us a space to be heard. And let us find our hope in the presence of those who have gone before us and in the love of your son Jesus. Amen.
_______________
1 There is so much more to this story and to Professor West’s connections with the Nation of Islam. Cornel West with David Ritz, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud (New York: SmileyBooks, 2009) 63, 67-70.
2 I don’t know if it is true but the Wikipedia article claims that the Sadducees name was related to Zadok the High Priest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadducees
3 Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
4 https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/11/5/whats-resurrection-for-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-twenty-second-week-after-pentecost
Dolores Huerta
Civil Rights Activist
October 23, 2022
Grace Cathedral
San Francisco, CA
Dolores Huerta
Civil Rights Activist
October 23, 2022
Grace Cathedral
San Francisco, CA
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God” (Jer. 31).
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8
“When the Son of humanity comes will he find faith on earth” (Lk. 18)? These words from two thousand years ago are the defining question of our time. This week the House Committee on the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol concluded its hearings. We have seen indisputable evidence that politicians continue to use false claims of electoral fraud to secure their own power.[1]
Last month the governors of Florida and Texas falsely promised jobs and resettlement help to asylum seekers who they sent to Washington, D.C. and Martha’s Vineyard. They used immigrants, including children, as part of a political stunt.[2] This action echoes the way that black southerners were bused out of the south by segregationist White Citizens’ Councils to cities with prominent integrationist leaders in 1962.[3]
This week in Ukraine and Iran ordinary people were slaughtered because of a distant political agenda, because of an ideology. Here at home we see terrible poverty and neglect on our own streets. “When the Son of humanity comes, will he find faith on earth?”
In the face of the heartbreaking cruelty and dishonesty of his own time Jesus tells his friends, “a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart” (Lk. 18). Jesus tells this story near the end of his own journey to Jerusalem, as he talks about the end of time when God’s realm of justice, peace and love will come.
The Hebrew Bible frequently demands that the powerful have a special responsibility to widows, strangers and orphans. These groups are vulnerable because they have no male relatives to defend them. Although widows in the Bible (like in the stories of Ruth or Elijah and the widow of Zarephath) often model tenacity, resourcefulness and initiative, they represent vulnerability just as the judge symbolizes power.
In several sections of Luke’s Gospel he uses a “how much more” argument. “If you then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk. 11:13).[4] This parable uses this same logic.
A widow comes to a judge seeking justice. He does not believe in God. Nor does he respect people. He refuses to help her until he reasons that, “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out” (Lk. 18). Let me point out two ways in which the Greek version differs from the English translation. When the judge says that he does not want the widow to “wear him out” the Greek word for this is hupopiazē. It is an expression from boxing. It means to literally give someone a black eye. The judge doesn’t want the widow to embarrass him or injure his reputation.
Second, the Greek more strongly conveys urgency, impatience and conviction. Greek uses double negatives to add emphasis. It’s almost as if Jesus raises his voice to underline what he means. A more literal version might be, “And will not God give vengeance to his chosen ones who are crying day and night? And be impatient to help them!”[5]
The point is not that God resembles the unjust judge. In almost every respect Jesus describes God as the opposite. The judge is self-centered. He only uses people. But God is full of love, impatient for his children to thrive. Jesus is unafraid to be humiliated for our sake. The purpose of this “how much more” story is for us to trust God and to persist in prayer.[6]
Today I want to give you one picture of a faithless world and then to consider how faith humanizes us.
- In college I knew a woman whose favorite story was Ernest Hemmingway's "The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber." This always worried me about her partly because of the story's misogyny but mostly because of its position with regard to faith.
We meet Francis Macomber as a thirty-five year old American business tycoon on safari in East Africa. As the story unfolds we gradually come to realize that he has committed the cardinal sin in the universe of Hemingway fiction. The day before he betrayed his manliness and ran in fear from a wounded lion who had been concealed in the tall grass.
Margot, his wife, does not try to comfort him in his humiliation. Instead, she despises this act of cowardice and as a consequence she sleeps with the safari leader that night. Hemmingway also seems to hate his own fictitious character, because he wouldn't leave his wife, because "he would take anything" from her.[7]
The next day the group goes in pursuit of a dangerous buffalo. Then, suddenly, in an almost religious conversion, Macomber changes. Hemmingway writes, that “[f]or the first time in his life he felt wholly without fear. Instead of fear he had a feeling of definite elation.” The safari leader admires this new courage. His wife fears it because she no longer has the power to make him ashamed of being afraid.
Why is it called a "Short Happy Life"? Only moments later as Macomber tries to flush the buffalo out of the long grass, “he [feels] a sudden white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt.” Although his wife claimed she was aiming at the buffalo, she shot him in the back of the head.
When the son of man comes will he find faith on earth? In Hemmingway's universe there is no faith. Men can never depend on women, or on other men. Every person is either a conquest or an adversary. The individual can only rely on an elusive courage that comes miraculously from within, an irrational bravery which completely isolates each soul from all else.
- The theologian H. Richard Niebuhr emphasizes that faith means more than merely faith in God. Faith concerns all the ways that we are connected to and support and depend on each other. “We see this possibility – that human history will come to its end… in the gangrenous corruption of a social life in which every promise, contract, treaty and “word of honor” is given and received in deception and distrust. If [human beings] can no longer have faith in each other, can they exist as [human beings]?”[8]
What shall we do in this time before the second coming of Christ? We need to pray and not lose hope. We also need to strive to be people of honesty and integrity, to listen and care for others. To use the language of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) we need to treat people as ends rather than as means to our own goals. The heartbreaking sin of this judge was his inability to see the widow as a person.
I have a friend named Sue Everson who is a world authority on hopelessness. As a medical researcher she studies the effect that hopelessness has on our health. One of her more startling statistics is that people who feel hopeless are twenty percent more likely to die in the next four years from a stroke. Hopelessness increases your chance of a stroke to the same degree that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day does. Sue scientifically studies how religion seems to make people less hopeless.[9]
Today with churches around the world we celebrate the Children’s Sabbath. A central part of what we do together involves our care for children and families. We teach children how to listen spiritually, how to pray and not lose heart. Professor Lisa Miller has been our guest on the forum twice. She argues that denying our spirituality is not just untrue but unhealthy for us and especially for children.
Using new techniques ranging from twin studies to neuroimaging, scientists are coming to a new appreciation for just how important spirituality is for human flourishing. Miller claims that all children possess a kind of “natural spirituality.” This interest in the Holy, this, “direct sense of… the heartbeat of the living universe… precedes and transcends language, culture and religion.”[10] This spirituality protects us, but not completely, from depression, anxiety and the tendency to misuse alcohol and drugs.
So what is the most important thing that we can do as adults for children? We can support their Sunday School teachers and the families who gather here. We can take their questions seriously. We can listen to them.[11]
And so the conversation continues every week here. In life we are forever asking and being asked a simple question, “do you believe me?”[12] Do you? Seeing what is happening in the world, it is easy to struggle with a crisis of trust right now. I trust God but I don’t know if the Son will find faith on earth. And yet at the same time I feel remarkably supported by the life I find at Grace Cathedral.
C.S. Lewis writes that, “Faith… is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of changing moods….” Because of this he says we need to pray and hold some of the Christian ideals in our mind for a period of time every day. We need to worship because, “We have to be continually reminded of what we believe… Belief has to be fed…” People do not cease to be Christian because of a good argument but because they simply drift away.
Kathleen Norris writes, “prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been.”[13]
My friends pray always and do not lose heart. Be trustworthy and care for the children. When the Son of humanity comes may he find faith on earth.
[1] Alan Feuer, Luke Broadwater, Maggie Haberman, Katie Benner and Michael S. Schmidt, “Jan. 6: The Story So Far,” The New York Times, 14 October 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/politics/jan-6-timeline.html?name=styln-capitol-mob®ion=TOP_BANNER█=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&variant=show&is_new=false
[2] Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Eileen Sullivan, “Is That Legal: How Scores of Migrants Came to be Shipped North,” The New York Times, 16 September 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/us/politics/migrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis.html?name=styln-marthas-vineyard-immigrants®ion=TOP_BANNER█=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&variant=show&is_new=false and https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/us/migrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis-texas.html
[3] Jacey Fortin, “When Segregationists Offered One-Way Tickets to Black Southerners,” The New York Times, 14 October 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/us/migrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis-texas.html
[4] See also, “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you – you of little faith!” (Lk. 12:28).
[5] 22 Pent (10-16-16) 24C.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hemingway cynically writes, "They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him now." Ernest Hemingway, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” The Short Stories of Ernest Hemmingway (NY: Scribners/Macmillan, 1987) 18. See also, 20 Pent (10-21-01) 24C.
[8] “We see this possibility – that human history will come to its end neither in a brotherhood of [humanity] nor in universal death under the blows of natural or man-made catastrophe, but in the gangrenous corruption of a social life in which every promise, contract, treaty and “word of honor” is given and received in deception and distrust. If [human beings] can no longer have faith in each other, can they exist as [human beings]?”
H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth: An Inquiry into the Structure of Human Faith ed. Richard R. Niebuhr (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 1.
[9] 20 Pent (10-17-04) 24C.
[10] Lisa Miller, The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving (NY: Picador, 2015) 25.
[11] Miller quotes a parent who says, “I didn’t realize for a long time that when my child asks a question and I say, “I don’t know,” and just leave it at that, I’m actually stopping the conversation.” Ibid., 47.
[12] H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth: An Inquiry into the Structure of Human Faith ed. Richard R. Niebuhr (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 22.
[13] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (NY: Riverhead Books, 1998) 60-1.
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God” (Jer. 31).
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8
“When the Son of humanity comes will he find faith on earth” (Lk. 18)? These words from two thousand years ago are the defining question of our time. This week the House Committee on the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol concluded its hearings. We have seen indisputable evidence that politicians continue to use false claims of electoral fraud to secure their own power.[1]
Last month the governors of Florida and Texas falsely promised jobs and resettlement help to asylum seekers who they sent to Washington, D.C. and Martha’s Vineyard. They used immigrants, including children, as part of a political stunt.[2] This action echoes the way that black southerners were bused out of the south by segregationist White Citizens’ Councils to cities with prominent integrationist leaders in 1962.[3]
This week in Ukraine and Iran ordinary people were slaughtered because of a distant political agenda, because of an ideology. Here at home we see terrible poverty and neglect on our own streets. “When the Son of humanity comes, will he find faith on earth?”
In the face of the heartbreaking cruelty and dishonesty of his own time Jesus tells his friends, “a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart” (Lk. 18). Jesus tells this story near the end of his own journey to Jerusalem, as he talks about the end of time when God’s realm of justice, peace and love will come.
The Hebrew Bible frequently demands that the powerful have a special responsibility to widows, strangers and orphans. These groups are vulnerable because they have no male relatives to defend them. Although widows in the Bible (like in the stories of Ruth or Elijah and the widow of Zarephath) often model tenacity, resourcefulness and initiative, they represent vulnerability just as the judge symbolizes power.
In several sections of Luke’s Gospel he uses a “how much more” argument. “If you then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk. 11:13).[4] This parable uses this same logic.
A widow comes to a judge seeking justice. He does not believe in God. Nor does he respect people. He refuses to help her until he reasons that, “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out” (Lk. 18). Let me point out two ways in which the Greek version differs from the English translation. When the judge says that he does not want the widow to “wear him out” the Greek word for this is hupopiazē. It is an expression from boxing. It means to literally give someone a black eye. The judge doesn’t want the widow to embarrass him or injure his reputation.
Second, the Greek more strongly conveys urgency, impatience and conviction. Greek uses double negatives to add emphasis. It’s almost as if Jesus raises his voice to underline what he means. A more literal version might be, “And will not God give vengeance to his chosen ones who are crying day and night? And be impatient to help them!”[5]
The point is not that God resembles the unjust judge. In almost every respect Jesus describes God as the opposite. The judge is self-centered. He only uses people. But God is full of love, impatient for his children to thrive. Jesus is unafraid to be humiliated for our sake. The purpose of this “how much more” story is for us to trust God and to persist in prayer.[6]
Today I want to give you one picture of a faithless world and then to consider how faith humanizes us.
- In college I knew a woman whose favorite story was Ernest Hemmingway's "The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber." This always worried me about her partly because of the story's misogyny but mostly because of its position with regard to faith.
We meet Francis Macomber as a thirty-five year old American business tycoon on safari in East Africa. As the story unfolds we gradually come to realize that he has committed the cardinal sin in the universe of Hemingway fiction. The day before he betrayed his manliness and ran in fear from a wounded lion who had been concealed in the tall grass.
Margot, his wife, does not try to comfort him in his humiliation. Instead, she despises this act of cowardice and as a consequence she sleeps with the safari leader that night. Hemmingway also seems to hate his own fictitious character, because he wouldn't leave his wife, because "he would take anything" from her.[7]
The next day the group goes in pursuit of a dangerous buffalo. Then, suddenly, in an almost religious conversion, Macomber changes. Hemmingway writes, that “[f]or the first time in his life he felt wholly without fear. Instead of fear he had a feeling of definite elation.” The safari leader admires this new courage. His wife fears it because she no longer has the power to make him ashamed of being afraid.
Why is it called a "Short Happy Life"? Only moments later as Macomber tries to flush the buffalo out of the long grass, “he [feels] a sudden white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt.” Although his wife claimed she was aiming at the buffalo, she shot him in the back of the head.
When the son of man comes will he find faith on earth? In Hemmingway's universe there is no faith. Men can never depend on women, or on other men. Every person is either a conquest or an adversary. The individual can only rely on an elusive courage that comes miraculously from within, an irrational bravery which completely isolates each soul from all else.
- The theologian H. Richard Niebuhr emphasizes that faith means more than merely faith in God. Faith concerns all the ways that we are connected to and support and depend on each other. “We see this possibility – that human history will come to its end… in the gangrenous corruption of a social life in which every promise, contract, treaty and “word of honor” is given and received in deception and distrust. If [human beings] can no longer have faith in each other, can they exist as [human beings]?”[8]
What shall we do in this time before the second coming of Christ? We need to pray and not lose hope. We also need to strive to be people of honesty and integrity, to listen and care for others. To use the language of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) we need to treat people as ends rather than as means to our own goals. The heartbreaking sin of this judge was his inability to see the widow as a person.
I have a friend named Sue Everson who is a world authority on hopelessness. As a medical researcher she studies the effect that hopelessness has on our health. One of her more startling statistics is that people who feel hopeless are twenty percent more likely to die in the next four years from a stroke. Hopelessness increases your chance of a stroke to the same degree that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day does. Sue scientifically studies how religion seems to make people less hopeless.[9]
Today with churches around the world we celebrate the Children’s Sabbath. A central part of what we do together involves our care for children and families. We teach children how to listen spiritually, how to pray and not lose heart. Professor Lisa Miller has been our guest on the forum twice. She argues that denying our spirituality is not just untrue but unhealthy for us and especially for children.
Using new techniques ranging from twin studies to neuroimaging, scientists are coming to a new appreciation for just how important spirituality is for human flourishing. Miller claims that all children possess a kind of “natural spirituality.” This interest in the Holy, this, “direct sense of… the heartbeat of the living universe… precedes and transcends language, culture and religion.”[10] This spirituality protects us, but not completely, from depression, anxiety and the tendency to misuse alcohol and drugs.
So what is the most important thing that we can do as adults for children? We can support their Sunday School teachers and the families who gather here. We can take their questions seriously. We can listen to them.[11]
And so the conversation continues every week here. In life we are forever asking and being asked a simple question, “do you believe me?”[12] Do you? Seeing what is happening in the world, it is easy to struggle with a crisis of trust right now. I trust God but I don’t know if the Son will find faith on earth. And yet at the same time I feel remarkably supported by the life I find at Grace Cathedral.
C.S. Lewis writes that, “Faith… is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of changing moods….” Because of this he says we need to pray and hold some of the Christian ideals in our mind for a period of time every day. We need to worship because, “We have to be continually reminded of what we believe… Belief has to be fed…” People do not cease to be Christian because of a good argument but because they simply drift away.
Kathleen Norris writes, “prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been.”[13]
My friends pray always and do not lose heart. Be trustworthy and care for the children. When the Son of humanity comes may he find faith on earth.
[1] Alan Feuer, Luke Broadwater, Maggie Haberman, Katie Benner and Michael S. Schmidt, “Jan. 6: The Story So Far,” The New York Times, 14 October 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/politics/jan-6-timeline.html?name=styln-capitol-mob®ion=TOP_BANNER█=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&variant=show&is_new=false
[2] Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Eileen Sullivan, “Is That Legal: How Scores of Migrants Came to be Shipped North,” The New York Times, 16 September 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/us/politics/migrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis.html?name=styln-marthas-vineyard-immigrants®ion=TOP_BANNER█=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&variant=show&is_new=false and https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/us/migrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis-texas.html
[3] Jacey Fortin, “When Segregationists Offered One-Way Tickets to Black Southerners,” The New York Times, 14 October 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/us/migrants-marthas-vineyard-desantis-texas.html
[4] See also, “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you – you of little faith!” (Lk. 12:28).
[5] 22 Pent (10-16-16) 24C.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hemingway cynically writes, "They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him now." Ernest Hemingway, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” The Short Stories of Ernest Hemmingway (NY: Scribners/Macmillan, 1987) 18. See also, 20 Pent (10-21-01) 24C.
[8] “We see this possibility – that human history will come to its end neither in a brotherhood of [humanity] nor in universal death under the blows of natural or man-made catastrophe, but in the gangrenous corruption of a social life in which every promise, contract, treaty and “word of honor” is given and received in deception and distrust. If [human beings] can no longer have faith in each other, can they exist as [human beings]?”
H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth: An Inquiry into the Structure of Human Faith ed. Richard R. Niebuhr (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 1.
[9] 20 Pent (10-17-04) 24C.
[10] Lisa Miller, The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving (NY: Picador, 2015) 25.
[11] Miller quotes a parent who says, “I didn’t realize for a long time that when my child asks a question and I say, “I don’t know,” and just leave it at that, I’m actually stopping the conversation.” Ibid., 47.
[12] H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth: An Inquiry into the Structure of Human Faith ed. Richard R. Niebuhr (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 22.
[13] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (NY: Riverhead Books, 1998) 60-1.
"No slave can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and wealth.” Luke 16
Jeremiah 8:18--9:1
Psalm 79:1-9
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13
I have been dwelling on Jesus’ parable about the fired manager over the last few months. In an instant the shock of losing everything seizes him. A sense of inadequacy, worthlessness and humiliation confronts us when we do not have enough to provide for those we love. This terror may be completely foreign to you, it may have come and gone in different stages of your life – or you may be in the grips of this fear now and have no idea how to ever escape from it.
We often talk about inequality without spelling out what it really means. In our society we tolerate a greater amount of insecurity and fear than in other advanced democracies. Not having adequate healthcare, housing, food, education and leisure time creates terrible and unnecessary suffering for millions. In America racism has always been part of this story. Treating some people as less than fully human has made us callous to the pain of others.
People often ask me a simple question that I never answer straightforwardly. “Why do your parents live in Florida?” The reason quite simply is that during the last years of his employment a younger woman was being abused by my father’s boss. My dad publicly stood up for her and as a result lost his job and the pension benefits that he desperately needed in his retirement. For every remaining year of his life he will continue to pay a substantial price for acting righteously. Their small Florida town is a cheap place to live.
Jesus’ story is similarly about a turning point in someone’s life. It is about a man forced to look back at his past as he faces an uncertain future. A manager caught squandering his boss’ wealth gets fired. Afraid that he will fall into poverty, he acts quickly. Before the owner can get the word out, the manager cancels his clients’ debts in the hope that they may one day help him.
It seems strange but the owner regards this behavior as clever. Jesus agrees. He says, “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light” (Lk. 16). Jesus goes on, “I tell you make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth.”
Augustine, the fourth century African saint writes, “I can’t believe this story came from the lips of our Lord.” We agree and immediately set to work explaining it, justifying it, domesticating Jesus so that he won’t interrupt our life. But Jesus will not sit down and be silent.
Perhaps we feel offended, because Jesus says, “be like that” manager when we believe we are better than that. If we were laid off, we would not walk out with the office furniture, or give away company property to win friends cheaply. We long for a simple explanation of this story that will not complicate our life. Jesus however does not care about this. He passionately desires that we will return to God.
Scholars want the same kind of simple answer that we do. They explain the story away. Some call it hyperbole, a kind of exaggeration that Jesus uses to get our attention. Others suggest that the owner is a first century crime boss and that this manager robs the rich to give to the poor. One scholar writes that the steward gives away his regular commission.
Each of these explanations might make us feel more comfortable, but I believe that Jesus is challenging us. Three things particularly stand out about his words this morning. Jesus speaks about how to treat money and the future.
- Jesus talks about money more than you and I do. I read somewhere that in the gospel of Luke one out of every seven of Jesus’ sayings has to do with money. Jesus seems consistently more concerned about it than about friendship, sex, marriage, politics, government, war, family values, truthfulness or church. Jesus more wisely than most of us recognizes the power of money. I wonder if people who believe only in material things, but do not believe in God, talk more about money that spiritual people.
Jesus would say that both are wrong, both materialists and Christians underestimate the effect that money has on our soul. Materialists fail to recognize the existence of the ultimate. Christians fail to see how money is related to it. Jesus says some radical things about money. He understands the temptation to live for accumulating money and the things that it can buy.
With regard to the gospel and money, there is one thing I am sure of and one that I am not. I’m not certain about this part, but it seems to me that money in the Gospel of Luke is always tainted. Luke calls it mammon. This word includes everything that you own that has cash value. There is something already corrupt about mammon. We all tell stories to justify why we have money and someone else does not. We all may be equal in God’s eyes, but money substantiates the difference between a person with power and a person without it.
Part of me wants to resist this, to believe that money is simply neutral, that its goodness depends only on what we spend it on. But I think Luke’s point is that this view assumes that money has no history before we possess it. In our culture we have so many self-serving stories that justify our wealth. We often associate it with moral virtue (as if it mostly came from our hard work, intelligence, education, competence, etc.). By warning us about money, Luke reminds us of the truth. All we have and all we own and all we are comes from God.
This is not at all to say that we should try to be poor. Money can solve problems. The vast majority of problems could be resolved by a particular amount of money. Unfortunately the solutions that money buys never last. Our problems traced back to their roots are ultimately spiritual problems.
- This brings me to the second point about money, the thing that I am more sure about. I believe that money connects the spiritual and the material. I know it is radical, but with Jesus, I am convinced that we can use our money to genuinely please God. Whether money is inevitably tainted as I believe Luke claims, or if it is neutral as my economics professors believed, money makes ministry possible. We can do God’s work with money. We can make an amazing difference in the lives of the poor, the sick, the lonely and the spiritually destitute through our use of money.
True wealth comes not from what we receive or own but from what we give away. Grace Cathedral with its beauty, its history as one of the oldest churches in Western America may seem as close to permanent as you can get in this world of change.
But this is a fragile institution. Every year a large number of people have to give a large amount of money in order for us to keep going. There are not many places that will make better use of your gift. Organized together we visit the sick, the lonely and the elderly. We teach children about God and introduce them to adults who they can depend on. God changes lives here. Maybe your money is honest, maybe it’s not, but it does do God’s work at Grace Cathedral.
- The final thing that I believe Jesus says to us through this story has to do with time. I think faith can make some people passive. They reason that since God has all the power, what they do doesn’t matter. Jesus emphasizes that this is a parable about a turning point. The manager feels the same kind of pressure that we feel here today. But instead of responding with nostalgia for a more stable past, or by wallowing in his present misery, the manager acts decisively. Jesus applauds this.
The American poet Marie Howe wrote a poem about her brother dying of AIDS called “The Last Time.” “The last time we had dinner together in a restaurant / … he leaned forward // and took my two hands in his hands and said, / I’m going to die soon. I want you to know that. // And I said, I think I do know. / And he said, What surprises me is that you don’t. // And I said, I do. And he said, What? / And I said, Know that you’re going to die. // And he said, No, I mean that you are.”
When it comes to money, most of us act as if we don’t know that we will die. Jesus’ story is not just about how we are spending our money, but how we are spending our lives. Perhaps his deeper point is that this world, in which we spend ourselves to impress others or to protect our ego, is passing away. In this life we have a singular opportunity to spend ourselves shrewdly for the sake of God’s Kingdom.
The story of the unjust manager may not make complete sense to us yet. But this parable reminds us that a feeling of entitlement and superiority comes along with our money. This can isolate us from God, and make us blind to the needs of others. Jesus’ story also shows us the connection between the spiritual and the material, that God is more pleased by what we give than what we get.
Finally it awakens us to the truth that Jesus’ promise is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. You cannot buy the future. It will never belong to you. But you can act confidently because the future belongs to God. I think this is what my father did when he helped his co-worker. I wonder what effect his simple sacrifice has had in her life over the years. This is what Jesus himself did. Even on the way to the cross he trusted God completely. No home on earth will ever feel completely comfortable or safe because we were made to always draw nearer to our creator.
Another says that the manager expected the owner to check the books and that the owner is glad for the positive public relations that this debt relief would bring.
The escaped slave Frederick Douglass writes that, “You may not get all that you pay for in this world but you pay for all that you get.” Quoted in Frederick Streets, “Accountability,” The Christian Century, 3/17/99.
If you go to a therapist, they’ll help you find your strengths and adjust for your weaknesses. They’ll give you books to read and have conversations about how you feel. If you go to Jesus, he tells you something totally different. Jesus says trust in God, because the future belongs to him.
Marie Howe What the Living Do (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998).
“Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost” (Lk. 15).
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
Mark Johnson and George Lakoff’s Metaphors We Live By is one of my favorite books. These authors point out that simple unexamined metaphors lie behind the very structure of our thought. The idea of “argument as war” is an example. We talk about winning an argument, an indefensible position, being right on target, shooting down an assumption, etc. We could imagine another culture regarding argument as being more like a kind of dance.[i]
Today Jesus addresses two primal understandings of religion that deeply influenced the people of his society and our own. The first is the idea of a spiritual quest, a search for God. The second idea is that of church as a community of saints set apart from the world. Jesus upsets assumptions that lie so deep in our consciousness that we simply assume that this is just what life in God means.
- The spiritual quest. On December 24, 1915 Albert Einstein was drinking tea in his Berlin apartment when he received a crumpled, muddy, blood-stained letter from the trenches of World War I. It contained a message from the great genius and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916). Let me quote the letter’s final words. “As you see, the war treated me kindly enough, in spite of heavy gunfire, to allow me to get away from it all and take this walk in the land of your ideas.”[ii]
The letter astounded Einstein not simply because one of the most respected scientists in Germany was commanding an artillery unit on the Russian front, or because of the author’s fear of a coming catastrophe. In tiny print on the back page, only legible through the use of a magnifying glass, Schwarzschild had sent him the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity.
Schwarzschild’s approach worked well on a normal star which you might imagine as being like a bowling ball sitting on your bed and gently compressing the space around it. The problem arises when a large star exhausts its fuel and collapses. That star would keep compressing until the force of gravity grew to be so great that space would become infinitely curved and closed in on itself. The result would be, “an inescapable abyss permanently cut off from the rest of the universe.”
Out of a sense of duty and perhaps also to show that a faithful Jew could be a good German, Schwarzschild volunteered to serve in the war. During a mustard gas attack he helped two of his men put on masks. Slow to put on his own, this exposure may have been what initiated an autoimmune disorder that painfully covered his body with sores and killed him months later.
At first Schwarzschild dismissed his discovery as a kind of mathematical anomaly, but over time it began to really frighten him. In his last letter from Russia to his wife he wrote that this idea, “has an irrepressible force and darkens all my thoughts. It is a void without form or dimension, a shadow I can’t see, but one that I can feel with the entirety of my soul.”
A young man named Richard Courant stayed up talking with Schwarzschild on the night before he died. Schwarzschild told him that this concentration of mass would distort space and causality.[iii] The true horror was that since light would never escape from it, this singularity was unknowable, utterly unchanging, entirely isolated from everything else. Schwarzschild was one of the first people to contemplate the meaning of a black hole.[iv] But all of us are quite capable of imagining a place completely cut off from God. In fact most of us have been there.
Isolation can feel terrifying. Perhaps you feel misunderstood, or set apart by a secret, or by experiences that makes you different from the people around you. Maybe you believe that something that you did in the past simply cannot be forgiven or that you have been harmed and cannot be healed. Perhaps just the busyness of your life, or the loneliness of it, makes real connection with another person impossible. Or maybe you just feel that you are missing something that others have, that you are cut off from God.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ time see him sharing meals with deplorable, notoriously immoral people, with prostitutes and the tax collectors who collaborate with the Roman army. They often point out that these people haven’t really changed or repented. They wonder if Jesus is incurably naïve. They argue that someone who was from God would have the wisdom to realize how bad these people really are.
In response Jesus tells three stories. One is about a wealthy shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to find one in the wilderness. “When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices” (Lk. 15). Another is about a woman sweeping the whole house to find a coin and concludes saying, “There is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner who repents.” The last is the story of the Prodigal Son.
In other words Jesus takes our dominant metaphor of a spiritual quest and turns it on its head. Religion is not about seeking God. It is about God’s persistence in finding us. It is about overcoming separation and the joy of reunion.
As a young management consultant one of my closest friends in our Santa Monica office was a young engineer named Walid Iskandar. Walid had grown up in Lebanon during the 1970’s. He was a deeply sincere, thoughtful and fun person with a kind of mischievous smile that I can still see in my mind’s eye.
In college I played rugby with a young freshman who was still trying to figure out the game. His name was Mark Bingham. What these two friends of mine share in common is that they both lost their lives twenty one years ago today when terrorists hijacked their airplanes. In my imagination they are perpetually young. In their last moments, despite the confusion and fear, I believe that God was with them.
In 2018 twelve boys on a soccer team with their coach found themselves trapped deep below the earth in a labyrinthine network of flooded caves in Thailand. As the monsoon season progressed it seemed impossible to nearly everyone in the world that they would be saved. Cave divers from England talked about not being able to see their hands in front of their masks, of wriggling through impossibly narrow spaces again and again unsure of the way out. I will never forget that image of the diver emerging from the water and the amazement on the boys’ faces that they had been found. This joy at being discovered lies at the heart of faith.
- The second idea that Jesus overturns is that the church exists as a community of holy people set apart from the world. You see this in the conviction that you must first think, say, or do something before you can be acceptable to God.
A few weeks ago a very close friend went to the funeral of her father. At the end of the service, the very last words that the pastor spoke went something like this. “Pat was a great husband, father, lawyer and community leader. But until Pat found Jesus and accepted him in his heart, he was a sinner. Only through the sacrifice of Jesus are we cleansed from sin. No matter how hard you might try to be good, until you have accepted Jesus you are a sinner.”
Jesus completely overturns this picture of how to be in God. It’s not that you become good and then God helps you. Instead, God helps us so that we can be healed. The critics of Jesus feel offended by his connection to the people who break the rules. And Jesus tells them, “these are exactly the people I came to help. God’s love is abundant and overflowing. God will always persist in finding those who are lost.”
The point is that God’s love and mercy always comes before anything else. We do not first accept Jesus in our heart and then become free from sin. The church is not a community of former sinners, but of actively sinning sinners. God does not reward us for living well or believing something, God makes living well and faith itself possible by loving us back to life.
Today we celebrate Congregation Sunday and our calling as a unique people of God. There is no other community quite like this one and I love who we are. But let me be perfectly clear, we have not stopped screwing up. And yet we are loved by God anyway. Although we continue to slip up, we keep encountering God’s grace. This makes us a joyful community of people who against all odds God has found in the way that God is finding all people.
Let me close with a poem by Denise Levertov about this peace that passes all understanding. It’s called “The Avowal.”
“As swimmers dare / to lie face to the sky / and water bears them, / as hawks rest upon air / and air sustains them, / so would I learn to attain / freefall, and float / into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, / knowing no effort earns / that all-surrounding grace.”[v]
In the face of isolation, everyday cruelty and sudden death what metaphor are we going to live by? Will we choose to see our life as a spiritual quest or as the experience of being found by God? Are we the holy ones or lost souls grateful every day to be found by God. My friends rejoice with me.
[i] George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) 3-7.
[ii] Benjamín Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World tr. Adrian Nathan West (New York: The New York Review of Books, 2020) 34ff. See also “Karl Schwarzschild” on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Schwarzschild
[iii] A hypothetical traveler capable of surviving a journey into a black hole would receive light and information from the future.
[iv] And the frightening question asked by this dying man was that if such a thing exists in nature, could there be something like this in the human psyche. Could a concentration of human will cause millions to be exploited so that the laws of human relations no longer held? Schwarzschild feared that this was already happening in Germany.
[v] Denise Levertov, “The Avowal.” https://allpoetry.com/The-Avowal
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, 2C32
13 Pentecost (Proper 18C) 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 4 September 2022
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Psalm 139:1-5, 13-17
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33
We have a stained glass window with a larger than life image of the astronaut John Glenn in his spacesuit. Like him, this morning we will travel a great distance in a short time through three little sermons each based on a different reading.
- The first sermon is called, “Hating Your Life.” The world’s Anglican bishops met together at this summer’s Lambeth Conference in England. A group of bishops issued a press release condemning same sex marriage. It demands, “repentance by the revisionist provinces,” and goes on to state that we cannot all be in communion if we have two different opinions about marriage and sexuality.[i]
We experience this kind of Christianity frequently here in North America. All of us encounter Christians who seem to have absolute confidence in knowing precisely who God is and that they are doing exactly what God wants them to do. Often they seem to believe that God hates people whose faith is different than their own. Let me point out that lacking this kind of confidence is not the same thing as lacking faith.
In today's Gospel, Jesus heals a woman who has been bent over for 18 years, and she is able to stand up again. He does this on the Sabbath, and it is by standing up that she is able to participate in the community's rest again. The gospel, like a quilt, offers a powerful illustration of how we are bound together, woven stories with threads of both harm and healing.
RCL Proper 16C: Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, Hebrews 12:18-29, Luke 13:10-17
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco,
2C26 Transfiguration (Year C)
Baptisms 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 7 August 2022
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99:5-9
2 Peter 1:13-21
Luke 9:28-36
“[B]e attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1).
When we were first becoming friends I did not talk much about my old life. Before joining you I served at Christ Church, Los Altos for fourteen years. From inside, that church building looks like a jewel box. It has four massive walls of stained glass. Each 12 x 34 ft. window depicts a different season of the year. The stained glass alone weighs 19,000 pounds. As the first person to arrive there every summer morning I remember the silence and the overwhelming feeling of God’s presence in the light.
Gabriel Loire (1904-1996), the artist who created those windows also made the Grace Cathedral Human Endeavor windows which honor Thurgood Marshall, Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, John Glenn and others. We have other Loire windows in the transept clerestory and the north quire aisle.
But what I really want you to notice today is the rose window that Gabriel Loire also made. It is dedicated to the patron saint of our city, St. Francis, and to the poem attributed to him called the “Canticle of the Sun” (1224-5), the oldest known poem in colloquial Italian.
This is the largest rose window in the far western United States. It is 25 feet in diameter and has 3,800 pieces of glass. Every morning, light from the sunrise filters through it. Every night we illuminate it from inside so that the city can see its beauty and be reminded of God.
In summary, I have spent pretty much every day for twenty-one years experiencing the beauty and love of God through Gabriel Loire windows. Then a month ago for the first time we visited the workshops where all of them were fashioned.
We set out from Chartres Cathedral on one of the most beautiful walks of my life past clay tennis courts and ancient sycamore trees, past a viaduct along a river which wound through green meadows. Without an appointment we walked up the driveway to the Loire studios and a man in white coat like a lab technician asked to help. It turned out to be Bruno Loire, Gabriel Loire’s grandson. He asked us to wait in the gardens and then totally rearranged his schedule so that he could show us everything.
We visited four different studios where they make the glass. We saw a secret project for fashion week. Bruno drove us to a nearby church to see the glass there. We had afternoon tea with Gabriel Loire’s widow. Bruno showed us how he makes the kind of stained glass in our windows. With a mallet he shattered a piece of blue glass and handed it to me as a gift. Still sharp, it cut my thumb. I kept trying to hide the fact that I was bleeding.
And here it is. I want you to imagine that this piece of glass is your truest self, your soul if you will. It is beautiful. It is utterly unique. Perhaps you find it easy to see this holiness and distinctiveness in children. As we get older people have a harder time seeing this beauty in us but it is still there. Whoever you are as you listen to my voice, I want you to know this: that like this piece of glass, you are beautiful.
The musician James Taylor speaks about his first twenty-one years in an autobiographical audiobook (called Break Shot). For a while at the end of his teenage years he was a psychiatric patient at Maclean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts at the same time my grandfather was a chaplain there. I sometimes wonder if they met.
James Taylor talks about being a jealous agnostic. He wants to believe, in part because he sees that if we live only for ourselves, if we only serve our own ego, this selfishness can be a dangerous trap. He sees the power of being in community of caring for other people and the world.
Today we celebrate baptisms together, the sacrament by which God adopts us as children. It is the way that we become members of the church. It is how we become one with Christ, experience forgiveness of our sins and have new life in the Holy Spirit.
If each of us is like this beautiful fragment of glass. Baptism is the reminder that we are even more beautiful together. Baptism is like having your beautiful fragment of glass included in a vastly larger window. That window is the church and it tells the story of what God did in the past and shows us what God is doing now. In the dark night of the world this light can give other people heart.
This brings me to a difficult topic. We along with 85 million other people are part of the global Anglican communion, the third largest Christian body in the world. This week the bishops of all these churches met together in England. On Friday a group calling itself the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans published a statement. In it they declare that a gathering of churches which cannot agree about same sex marriages cannot be in communion with each other.
Although these bishops have no authority over us here in North America, these are very alarming words, especially as we worry about the forces that seem to be undermining our nation’s commitment to marriage equality.
At Grace Cathedral we believe that every person without exception is deeply loved by God. This is true of LGBTQ+ people. It is true of same sex couples. We will not stop marrying these couples who come here seeking God’s blessing. We see the Holy Spirit at work in their lives.
Let me close with that poem of praise from the thirteenth century that I mentioned earlier as the inspiration for our window, Francis’ “Canticle of the Sun.”
“Praised be my Lord God, with all creatures, and specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light; fair is he, and he shines with a very great splendor. O Lord, he signifies to us thee! // Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars… which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.”
“Praised be my Lord, for our brother the wind, and for air and clouds, calms and all weather, by which thou upholdest life in all creatures. // Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable to us, and humble and precious and clean.”
“Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou givest light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant, and very mighty and strong. // Praise be my lord for our mother the earth, … which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringest forth divers fruits, and flowers of many colors, and grass… Praise be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for love’s sake… blessed are they who peacefully shall endure, for thou, O Most High, wilt give them a crown.”
The face of Moses shone after he had been talking to God. When Jesus spoke to God on the mountain, Luke says that, “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Lk. 9). You too are God’s beloved child. You too shine with the glory of God’s majesty.
There are 3,800 pieces of glass in our rose window that is about the same as the number of people who worship here at Christmas. We are beautiful together. And the light of God shines through us.
The Holy Spirit is here. An urban legend has it that when David Cameron, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom packed up his office he left three envelopes for his successor Theresa May with a note saying, “Open one of these when you get into trouble.”
When negotiations with the European Union over Brexit started she opened the first envelope. It said, “Blame your predecessor.”[i] Later when she lost the first Brexit vote she opened the second envelope which read, “Reshuffle your cabinet.” Finally, after she lost the third vote on her Brexit plan she opened the final envelope. It said, “Prepare three envelopes.”
This story comes from Sam Wells the Vicar of St. Martin in the Fields. We met with him in London early in our journey this summer. He says there are two primary anxieties in our time, that can be simply expressed by two questions: First, is the universe simply meaningless and accidental, merely dead matter decomposing according to the principle of entropy into isolation and coldness? Second, will I be okay? In the face of this situation Jesus presents us with three far more helpful envelopes for us to open when things go wrong.
I want to talk about these instructions in the context of our Cathedral Tour journey. As we move into the next phase of the pandemic this is a crucial moment in the history of Christianity. Over the winter 31 trustees attended dinners I arranged to talk about how Grace Cathedral can lead and serve in this context. This week my wife Heidi and I returned from visiting over fifty churches in England and France where me met with church leaders to talk about what they see. We took 80 pages of notes, recorded twenty-five video interviews, posted dozens of pictures on social media – I have not yet fully assimilated what we saw or learned but I want to share this experience with you today.[ii]
- Repentance. When Jesus returns to his friends after being away in prayer, they seem anxious and they ask him to teach them to pray. Jesus gives them what we call the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father. You can carry this around in your heart and when you need help, it gives you a place to begin.
This week I especially noticed how the way we say this prayer differs from the words in this gospel. We pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” But this translation of the Bible says, “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us” (Lk. 11). Preachers often make a big deal about the conditional nature of this instruction – if we do this, then God will do something for us. But this morning what strikes me most is that people who love God will naturally want to be forgiving. The struggle over forgiveness and repentance lies at the heart of the spiritual life. A mature believer knows that as we want justice for ourselves, others desire this too.
This leads me to a difficult subject that I need to address. It was very hard for me to leave and to go on this cathedral tour because of tensions here at home in our own community. This is embarrassing for me to talk about, but not long before departing I and many others learned that some Executive Committee trustees were very disappointed in my leadership.
After the pandemic we never resumed meeting in person and what I have to repent for is my role in not doing a better job of communicating and staying connected to them. COVID twists, distorts and confuses so much. It kills relationships as well as people.
One of my most cherished moments of the summer came when we visited the cathedral nearest to our former dean Alan Jones’ childhood home. I kept wondering what Winchester taught him about how to be a dean here 5,000 miles away. A docent named Matt Winter took us on an alarming tour that began with graphic evidence of an ongoing and serious flooding problem in the crypt. He showed us how the very walls of the apse had begun to buckle in the late 1800’s.
Then he talked about the hero who saved the cathedral. A diver named William Wallace rode the train from his home in Croyden every day (on occasion he biked home, but that is another story). At first he had a partner, but that person had to quit because the work was too terrifying. Wallace was a diver in one of those old fashioned suits with the metal fishbowl helmets. His helper had to continuously pump air for him as he went into the dark murky water beneath the massive and collapsing cathedral walls in order to carefully place heavy bags of concrete which then hardened in place. For eight hours a day over five and a half years he did this.
Repentance and forgiveness can be like this – terrifying, difficult and demanding, but this is how a cathedral is really built.
- Persistence. Jesus tells about a man knocking on his neighbor’s door at midnight. The neighbor will give him bread not out of generosity but because he wants to be left alone. It’s a strange image that Jesus uses to encourage us to be persistent in seeking God.
In his book on St. Augustine, Rowan Williams the former Archbishop of Canterbury writes about memory and time.[iii] When we sing a song from memory, the whole song is not available to us at once, just the part of it that we are singing at that moment. In a sense the end and the beginning of the song are with us but not in our immediate consciousness. It’s like that feeling we have when we are trying to think of a word or name. We say, “it will come to me in a minute.” This gives us a picture of who we are.
In a sense we are our memories and yet our memories are not totally available to us. This is how we experience our self and God. The whole is never completely present to us. Our memories and their meaning are shifting according to the stories we tell. Church gives us the chance to recalibrate, so that our stories again harmonize with the truth. That is a central reason we need to persist in worship.
One of my favorite conversations this summer was with Sub-Dean Richard Peters at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. A week ago after spending four hours with us (drinking sherry in the garden, touring and evensong) he said what he had just inadvertently demonstrated, “Hospitality is fundamental to the Christian life.” This generosity of spirit comes from someone who has been and is constantly not welcomed by the church because for thirty-five years he has loved his life partner Nicholas who happens to be another man.
Richard went on. He said, “Prayer is not that difficult.” We struggle with it, but really it is simply talking to God. This is what allows us to receive the gifts of wonder and awe that are one way that we enjoy God and take delight in God.[iv]
- God’s love. The final envelope that Jesus leaves us is his description of God’s love. How we love our children is an analogy for how God loves us. We know how to give good gifts and God does too. The most important thing I want to share with you today is this. What God is giving us is enough, because what we receive is the Holy Spirit.
One of the best of summer was time with our twenty-one year old daughter Melia. We were not together. I would do anything to please her. We wandered through thrift shops on Brick Lane, small shops in Notting Hill, outdoor markets and the Sky Garden.
We said goodbye sitting at a picnic table in a small Bloomsbury park at dusk. Because I will not be helping her to move into college this year, we don’t know when we will see each other again. Deep feelings like this help us to understand God’s love for us. As we walked away into the night I felt an enormous sense of gratitude for my wife Heidi. She is not just the Executive Producer of our films but a delightful, bright companion through every moment of the summer.
The day after David Ison retired as dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, he took us on a behind the scenes tour. At the very end he talked about hearing a confession that upset him so much that he went to pray in a small crypt chapel. Although he had already been dean for years, he discovered something new about his cathedral.
Behind the memorials for Horatio Nelson and the Duke of Wellington there is a small grave for the first modern professional dean of St. Paul’s. Before his time deans might collect a salary from, but not often visit, their own cathedrals. Dean Millman though was a poet and an Oxford University professor who loved his cathedral ministry.
Around his coffin an inscription lists the books he wrote and the nineteen years he served. But a larger inscription encompasses his grave and another. It says, ““IN PIOUS MEMORY OF MARY ANNE THE BELOVED WIFE OF HENRY HART MILLMAN SOMETIME DEAN OF THIS CATHEDRAL CHURCH. BENEATH THIS STONE RESTs IN ONE GRAVE WITH HIM FOR WHOM SHE MADE THE POETRY OF LIFE REALITY.”[v]
My friends, I missed you so much this summer. What a blessing it is to be home with you again and to hear the words of Jesus together. We inhabit a world in agony, struggling over anxiety that can be expressed in two questions: “Is this a dead universe? Will I be okay?” But Jesus does not leave us unprepared. Jesus shows us how to pray.
Although we cannot fully know ourselves or God, let us continue to keep repentance and forgiveness at the heart of our shared life. Let us be known for our persistence in seeking God and in offering hospitality. And finally let us not forget that what God is giving us, is enough. The Holy Spirit is here.
In Luke's gospel, the story of Jesus' visit with Mary and Martha guides us toward a qualitative approach to hospitality and ministry. What can we do with presence? The work of Christ Episcopal Church, Pottstown, PA, offers a potent example of this discerning approach. In their continued outreach ministry to the hungry, they have been fined by the local zoning board for exceeding the function of the church. And their community remains focused around hospitality and outreach as central to, not a distraction from, being church. How might we, by the same gospel commitment and discernment, be clearer signs of Christ's presence for one another and for the world?
Proper 11C (RCL)
Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42
Dramatist and actress Anna Deavere Smith will preach, addressing some of these themes of ongoing slavery and emancipation. Her award-winning work, Notes From the Field, draws from more than 200 interviews with students, parents, teachers and administrators caught in the school-to-prison pipeline.
The cathedral’s principal Eucharist, with anthems and service music sung by the Cathedral Choir. (60–75 minutes)
Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo, 10
Jacklyn Cazares, 9
Makenna Lee Elrod, 10
Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10
Eliahna Garcia, 10
Irma Garcia, 48
Uziyah Garcia, 10
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Xavier Lopez, 10
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10
Tess Mata, 10:
Miranda Mathis, 11
Eva Mireles, 44
Alithia Ramirez, 10
Annabelle Rodriguez, 10
Maite Rodriguez, 10
Lexi Rubio, 10
Layla Salazar, 11
Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10
Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10
Rojelio Torres, 10
Memorial Day is supposed to be a patriotic time of public mourning and remembrance for the brave women and men in uniform who gave the last full measure of devotion to defend these United States. Instead, in a perverse inversion of this day, we remember little children whose lives were cut down by weapons of war, not used to defend this country from foreign aggressors, but turned on its own citizens in a callous act of unforgivable aggression. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I should preach on this today. These shootings have become so frequent that if we clergy addressed them each time a new one occurred, we wouldn’t preach on much else. But as the predictable tweets of thoughts and prayers were fired off by the same lawmakers and pastors who consistently block not only legislation, but even conversation about legislation, to address these atrocities, I felt literally nauseous.
We do not need platitudes from the pulpit. On this eve of Memorial Day, let's not mince words: these children are dead because they are casualties in a Culture War not of their choosing. Involuntary conscripts into a war to determine the future not only of this nation, but of our faith. Thoughts and prayers aren’t the solution; they are the problem. These mass shootings can only continue because the Church in this country refuses to behave like the Church. When I was a loyal Southern Baptist footsoldier on the other side of the Culture Wars, it was common to talk about the four “G’s”: guns, gays, God and gynecology. We’ve seen this month that strategy hasn’t changed in fifty years.
This morning on this Feast of Ascension, I am left with the difficult conclusion that these precious children and their teachers are dead because the mostly white Christian evangelical lobby does not believe that Christ is risen, ascended and reigning at God’s right hand in glory. They do not believe in God, at least not any God I recognize from the Gospels. The same lot that sang “Some may trust in horses, some may trust in chariots / But we will trust in the name of our God” in the 1980s and 90s, have proven time and again since then that the only thing they really trust in is their assault rifles. Their faith is in the NRA.
If you think this is hyperbole, consider The Washington Post’s disturbing report that two days before the massacre in Uvalde, the gunmaker who manufactured the weapon used by the killer posted a photo online advertising its AR-15-style rifles showing a young boy - a child - holding a semiautomatic on his lap with this caption from Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” The sad part, of course, is that they’re right.
The Church has a profound moral obligation to call out the NRA on this point. They justify their pistol-peddling politics with the circular logic that gun ownership should be easily accessible because we live in a dangerous world where an 18 year old might shoot up an elementary school. Carried to its logical conclusion, the NRA envisions a world where everyone is armed to the teeth; where parents, instead of reminding their children not to forget their lunch boxes, will remind them not to forget their guns. Please, someone explain to me what part of that vision conforms to anything we know about Jesus in the Gospels?
The Parkland Shooting survivors are right: some love their guns more than their children. In Christianity, we have a name for that: idolatry. How ironic that the most outspoken defender of the NRA in our lifetimes is also best known for his role as Moses in the 1956 epic The Ten Commandments. Would that he had understood those commandments better, perhaps he would have held a different view. Because, in fact, there was a very practical purpose for discouraging the worship of other gods in the first commandment of Exodus. We hear about it in the next book, Leviticus. As a gay man, I’m used to evangelicals breaking out Leviticus 18:22 against me. But if they backed up just one verse, they’d read in 18:21: “You shall not give any of your offspring to sacrifice them to Molech and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.” Chapter twenty gets even more pointed, claiming that to do so amounts to defiling the sanctuary of the Lord, and that God will destroy everyone who turns a blind eye to this abhorrent practice of child sacrifice.
Interestingly, Molech is only mentioned by name once in the New Testament - in the Book of Acts, nine chapters before the odd story we heard this morning. That’s no accident. Acts of the Apostles is nearly obsessed with this question of idolatry. Acts 16 goes out of its way to tell us twice that the reason Paul and Silas are imprisoned is not because of some doctrinal dispute with the local authorities, but because they put an end to child exploitation. In doing so, they incurred a heavy financial loss for the men who were using the girl to turn a profit in exchange for her fortune telling powers. We need to return to this standard, when those who called themselves followers of Jesus put child-welfare above profits. The Church must demand that our governments and churches stop sacrificing our children to this Molech, this idol of easy gun ownership, even military-grade guns, turning a handsome profit for manufacturers every year, which in turn allows them to pour even more money in lobbies like the NRA.
One of the few children to survive the massacre did so only because she dipped her hand in the blood of a friend next to her, smeared it all over her body and played dead, hoping the teen-turned-angel-of-death might pass over her. No child should ever have to become living lintels and doorposts. How odd that a branch of Christianity fixated on the blood of Jesus, blood that can supposedly protect against COVID can’t protect children from their own designs, from having to play in some warped retelling of the Exodus story. Jesus is called the Lamb of God by John’s Gospel because of his sacrificial self-offering on a Cross. We’ve watched the memorial set up outside the school grow to include 19 small wooden crosses with hearts and Jesus fish at their center. When I saw that, it reminded me of a fact few Christians today realize. The cross did not become the official, or even a common symbol for Christianity until the late fifth or sixth centuries. Why?
As mothers plead for action, as they plead for the state not to forget their slaughtered babies, every Christian in this land should ask themselves how Mary would react if she walked into their sanctuaries. How would she react to the giant gilded cross suspended in our apse? It’s easy for us to take the Cross for granted today as a decorative element in our piety, but for those who actually lived in its terrifying shadow, it was unthinkable to represent it visually. Instead, early Christians opted for images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, or images of a fish because the Greek letters used to spell fish ICTHUS acted as a verbal gloss of “Jesus Christ Son of God, Savior.”
Our gospel accounts of the crucifixion are quite spare, but it was a gory affair. Suffocation over days as birds of prey slowly picked at victims flesh while they were still alive as people who probably knew them passed by. It was a vivid demonstration of Rome’s power to utterly erase humanity and dignity. Because of this, it was one of Rome’s most effective deterrents. It is sometimes assumed that when Constantine or Theodosius finally outlawed the practice, they did so for pious reasons: so that others could not die in the same manner as Christ. But, in fact, the earliest source tells us that it was more from a place of concern around humane treatment. Hanging replaced crucifixion because it was quick and far less painful. In other words, Christian rulers banned this weapon of terror because it was the right thing to do in light of their faith. Only when the actual thing disappeared did the symbol emerge.
We must pray for every parent of every child, and every family or friend of every victim of gun violence during this time when images of these weapons are circulating so widely in our media. But we must do more than lobby for better trigger warnings before movies and in social media feeds. We must demand that those who call themselves by Christ’s name stand up against this insidious idol. Molech didn’t attack and impose himself on the ancient Israelites, they adopted him as their false god by choice. There are glimmers of hope. Republican Representative Chris Jacobs came out in favor of stronger laws restricting the sale of semiautomatic weapons, limiting magazine capacity, and excluding the sale of body armor to the general public. Some conservative evangelical pastors are beginning to consider supporting similar measures.
The Church in this nation needs to wake up. There are many things that divide us, but this should not be one of them. The Mainline Church cannot be the only one mobilizing. Here at Grace, we have an altar to the victims of gun violence in the back of our sanctuary, and it has become one of the most visited sacred sites in this space. Everyone who calls themselves by Christ’s name should be as united in our disgust of easy access to AR-15 style weapons as we are in our love for the victims, families and friends who have already suffered so much, too much. The Church must come together, laying down our arms in the Culture Wars, to advance this crucial conversation, and to effect real and lasting change. Thankfully, we have a great high priest, who, knowing our weakness, knowing that we are plagued by ego and division, knowing that it would take not a single lifetime, but a lifetime of lifetimes to join in a more perfect union, prayed that we all might be one.
Amen.
“I tell you if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Lk. 19).
The Very Rev. Malcolm Clemens Young, ThD
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco 2C14
Palm & Passion Sunday (Year C) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday
10 April 2022
Luke 19:28-40
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 22:14, 23:56
Every day is an adventure – for better or for worse. Each day offers its lesson. We are kindergarteners in the school of love.
“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (2 Cor. 5)!
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
“God is faithful, and… will not let you be tested beyond your strength” (1 Cor. 10).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco 2C10
3 Lent (Year C) 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Eucharist
Sunday 20 March 2022
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
- “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance.” This is the full title of a peer-reviewed scientific paper published in the journal of Psychopharmacology (2006). It concludes that one can safely and reliably provoke a mystical experience (which the authors define as the dissolution of one’s ego followed by a sense of merging with the universe).
Study participants regard these psychedelic encounters as profoundly meaningful. Two thirds of them ranked it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives. One third called it the most significant one.
Griffiths, R. R., W.A Richards, U. McCann, and R. Jesse, “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance,” Psychopharmacology 187, no. 3 (2006): 268-83.
The Hebrew prophets read and interpreted signs and their mission was to help the people of God course correct — to prompt cultural, social, religious, moral change. Christians claim Jesus as prophet, priest and king, and in the Gospel according to Luke, the prophetic dimension of Jesus has a leading edge. So when we are gathered as brood, gathered into Christ's body, baptized into his life, ministry, death and resurrection, we are also baptized into Jesus' prophetic spirit. We are charged with change. The house that is left to us is not left to preserve as a museum, but to continually reform in the direction of right actions, right relationships, equity and justice in the world.
Lent 2C: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 • Psalm 27 • Philippians 3:17-4:1 • Luke 13:31-35
While prayer, fasting and almsgiving are traditional Lenten practices, today the book of Deuteronomy suggests something really positive and wonderful.
Malcolm Clemens Young Joel 2:1-2,12-17 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco 2C8 (Q6) Psalm 103:8-14 Ash Wednesday (Year C) 6:00 p.m. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Wednesday 2 March 2022
Burning Out
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt. 6).
In front of my high school there was a twenty-foot square of asphalt with a few concrete benches that was reserved as the smoking section. Kids there wore black rock and roll concert t-shirts, the boys had long hair and the girls wore shorter skirts with leather jackets. Kids called the students who hung out there burnouts. For many people, the whole identity of this group was simply reduced to their reputation for using drugs.
The kids called burnouts didn’t seem to care very much about grades or college or sports or clubs or being popular or pretty much anything else that mattered to other people. Perhaps this is part of what made them so attractive to me.
My burnout friends were also more sensitive to other people’s feelings. Oddly enough they seemed less self-absorbed. I knew that some of them had pretty hard lives at home, others had a difficult time academically. Because of this they knew what it felt like to suffer and to be misunderstood. This gave them a greater insight into other people’s feelings and shortcomings.
“[P]ut out into the deep water and let down your nets” (Lk. 5). I want to be perfectly clear before I start that I am speaking directly to you, to your heart… from my heart. This week you will hear so many words that do not matter. But this brief time is set aside for us to encounter God. I also hope to talk about the Cathedral mission statement, “Reimagining church with courage, joy and wonder.” The Very Rev. Malcolm Clemens Young, ThD Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2C5 5 Epiphany (Year C) 11:00 a.m. Sunday 6 February 2022 Isaiah 6:1-8 Psalm 138 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Luke 5:1-11
“The law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul” (Ps. 19).
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
3 Epiphany (Year C) 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Eucharist
Sunday 23 January 2022
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
Following a friend’s suggestion Martin Luther King called a young singer named Coretta Scott out of the blue to introduce himself and to invite her out. They had never met before. He seemed confident and she was doubtful. But soon they were seeing each other often. They would drive to the shoreline near Boston, eat clams and walk by the sea. They attended the Boston Symphony and heard Arthur Rubenstein playing the piano. They went skating, walking together through public parks and they fell in love.
Malcolm Clemens Young
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2C3
2 Epiphany (Year C)
11:00 a.m. Eucharist, Sunday 16 January 2022
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11
Malcolm Clemens Young, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2C2
1 Epiphany (Year C) 11:00 a.m. Eucharist, Sunday 9 January 2022
Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Civil War in America and Ethiopia
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you… When you walk through fire… the flame shall not consume you” (Isa. 43).
They say our story is "written in the stars." What if this is even more true than we know? Reading John's Prologue ("In the beginning was the Word...") through the lens of cultural astronomy helps us to see what it means to be human, what it means to be Christian, and how we might live for, and work toward, a world united by faith, hope, and love as we re-member our most ancient story.
"Just as God can’t be divided, neither can God’s grace and truth be divided. There isn’t a Hindu love versus Christian love. There is just love. There isn’t a Buddhist justice versus a Jewish justice. There is just justice. There isn’t an atheist generosity versus a believer generosity. There is simply generosity. All people come from the Light, and all people may testify to that Light. Our Hebrews reading says that the Son is the “reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being.” We may not all be the exact imprint, but we are all stamped in the image of God’s very being (Gen. 1:26-27). However imperfectly we may express it, we cannot help but do so. How wonderful is that? We cannot help but manifest something of God’s very being and life." - @judeaaronharmon
The Rev. Canon Jude Harmon
Canon for Innovative Ministries
#astronomy #Christianity #John1 #imagodei #imageofGod #humanevolution #Christianfaith #Incarnation #universalism #ChristmasDay #ChristmasIIIRCL #FirstNations #Algonquin #Pleiades #faithandscience
But joy is more than this, joy is when life becomes a kind of gift, a gift we could never have imagined or dreamed of. The theologian Karl Barth writes that, “Joy is really the simplest form of gratitude… to be joyful is to expect that life will reveal itself as God’s grace.
Malcolm Clemens Young Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2B41
Christmas Eve (Proper 2) 7:30 p.m. Eucharist Friday 24 December 2021
Isaiah 62:6-12
Psalm 97:1-2, 6-9, 11-12
Titus 3:4-7
Luke 2:8-20
Becoming Joyful “
Joy to the world! The Lord is come… Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing” (Hymn 100).
While sanitized in later Western art and dogma, Mary of Nazareth came of age in the soot of collective bondage. The probable facts of her life and the strength of her speech testify to God's power and possibility in the most unlikely places. In a key scene in Luke's Gospel, we see Mary climb a hill and then pronounce a visionary poem about God's transforming power. Mary's climb echoes that of inaugural poet Amanda Gorman. Together, these women propose a bold future, from which our fears need not separate us.
I will quote and reference Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/amanda-gorman-poem-biden-inauguration-transcript
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41swQHt2NPL._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_FMwebp_.jpg
“Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, Rejoice” (Phil. 4).
What would John the Baptist say specifically to you? At a Saturday night holiday party my friend Rajiv told me that in two weeks he had been in Dublin, Ireland, London, Boston, Houston and Miami. He paused and said, “Everyone I saw is broken. Everyone has lost something.” In the Marvel Comics superhero films “the Blip” refers to a fictional event in which half of all living things perish. It hasn’t been as bad as that, but we have shared a trauma that cannot so simply be just shaken off.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2B39
3 Advent (Year C) 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
Sunday 12 December 2021
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Psalm 9
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
Baruch 5:1-9
Canticle 16 (Lk. 1:68-79)
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
You Are Accepted
“Put on forever the beauty of the glory from God” (Baruch 5).
Who will you be? For a while you have been living away from the place where people really knew you before you put on this current identity. Something has brought you back to town for a couple of days. You have some extra time so you think about seeing that one friend who really understands you (and yet still likes you just the same). You have some hesitation about going over there because that friend sometimes asks hard questions and really gets down to truths that we mostly don’t feel like dealing with.
Beyond COVID fears and family drama, many US Americans wonder: how can you square the Thanksgiving extravaganza and the reality of Indigenous experience — including genocide and land theft? In today's readings Jesus stands before Pilate to testify to the truth. His faithful witness leads us through our doubts and dilemmas to a highly nuanced grasp of truth. We can't deny history, but we can construct a more just future and witness to a complex truth. We can extend our tables and expand our minds, to celebrate Thanksgiving, as well as Native American Heritage Day.
“For the Lord… with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise…” (1 Thess. 4).
Yesterday in the brilliant fall colors and dazzling warm light of Los Altos we buried my friend Jim McKnight in the columbarium of our old church. Jim and I had a strange relationship. He is my parent’s age. We first met when he was in his fifties and full of wisdom. And yet he had just been ordained the year before and so he didn’t know what I did about running churches.
For ten years he was my assistant rector. I don’t know if I’ll ever work so closely with anyone again and we accomplished such surprising things together. He had a wry sense of humor, loved opera. He was humble, dutiful, faithful, very orderly, methodical, detail-oriented, kind, thoughtful, a little high-strung, kind of tense.
Jim was still fairly corporate. He would have joked that he was a little neurotic but he wasn’t. I still carry lots of advice from him in my thoughts but the first thing that comes to mind is how he said, “trust the process.”[i]
[i] I suppose he was the Felix Unger and I was the Oscar Madison in our odd couple.
“Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God” (Jn. 11)?
One of my most vivid Pandemic memories Pandemic involved shopping for survival supplies at Smart and Final in the Outer Richmond. Raise your hand if you remember doing something like this. At that point we didn’t feel confident that grocery stores would remain open or that there would be enough food. Do you remember those lists of disaster supplies on the Internet (tarps, water storage containers, tools for turning off the gas, etc.). One included a shovel for burying bodies in the backyard.[i]
We heard the constant ambulance sirens in New York City and about refrigerator trucks filled with corpses. Indeed family members and friends were dying. Do you remember we also went through a period when it seemed like a third of all workers would lose their jobs. Then there were the days after the rioting when downtown San Francisco looked like a war zone. Then the wildfire darkness descended on us.
Because we are trying so hard just to keep going and to help the people who depend on us, we forget just how traumatic our experience of COVID was. But now we are beginning to come out of our caves. Something in us had died. And now we are wondering if we might be able to really live again. My sermon comes in three parts: 1. Believing and Seeing, 2. Feeling and Showing, 3. Acting and Being Helped.
[i] We wiped down our groceries but didn’t yet know that we should be wearing masks.
If you want to get something out of spiritual life try giving more to it. In piano lessons, at football practice, in Latin class, at work, in graduate school and your hobbies we learned that the more we put into an activity, the more we get out of it. This is true for church also. We have to work for God, in order for this to really work for us, for God to work on us.
One of the things that has pleased me most in recent years is the new life I see around people associated with the Cathedral’s Stewardship Committee. They have a difficult task and it has really brought out the best in them. They share a common spirit. They know that the Cathedral helps to keep their cup filled spiritually, so that they can do ministry out in the world.
Next week we will make promises as part of the baptism service. Our spiritual lives will not be complete if we cannot find a way to serve God’s church. I wouldn't ask us to do this if I was not sure that this service can enrich and transform our lives, in a way that we may not even be able to imagine right now.
- The Old Testament book of Ruth interrupts the account of tribes, nations and empires with a story about one single family and its struggles.[i] Naomi, her husband and two sons are environmental refugees. Famine forces them to flee their home and move to the country of their enemies. After they arrive the husband dies and the two sons marry women of that country named Orpah and Ruth.
After the sons die their mother Naomi announces to these daughters-in-law that she is going to return to her own country. The three clearly love each other and weep. Orpah decides to stay and Ruth chooses to go with Naomi to the country of her enemies where they speak a strange language and follow different traditions. She says, “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1).
In Israel the two women are starving. But there is a tradition that might help them, that of the family redeemer. After a man’s death a nearby relative will marry his widow, caring for the family and the land. The problem is that Ruth is a foreigner and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah prohibit marrying outside of Israel. So in Ruth’s case the nearest relative refuses to marry her. But Boaz generously marries Ruth. They have a son and the two women are saved from disaster.
But that is not all. The story ends in a genealogy which shows that this son is the grandfather of David, the greatest king of Israel and ultimately a lineal descendent of Jesus, the savior of the world.
But there is still more to this. So many people say that the story is about loyalty. But really Naomi didn’t have a claim on Ruth. Nor was Boaz required to marry a foreigner. These were acts of great generosity. In fact the book follows a very tight structure. The first chapter is about terrible death and loss, and Ruth’s generosity in the face of disaster. The last chapter is about the new life that comes from Boaz’s generosity.
It is important to notice also that at first the book seems to have nothing to do with God. The narrator never mentions God. In the first chapter Naomi cries out that, “the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” (Ruth 1). And yet God acts behind the scenes. Through ordinary, plain people, through an immigrant and the one who helped her, but above all through human generosity, God puts in motion a plan to save the world.
- I have another challenging friend who talks about money all the time. That friend is Jesus. Jesus encourages generosity. I said that there were two reasons to give money to the Cathedral. The first reason is that you need it. The second is that the Cathedral needs it too. The Cathedral wouldn't need our money at all if together we had a different idea of what church should be.
Let me explain. In the 1980's Robert Bellah and some of his colleagues at UC Berkeley wrote a book called Habits of the Heart. In this sociological account of American society the authors evaluate our collective piety. One of the most memorable interviews is with a woman named Sheila.
Sheila is a young nurse who actually named her faith after herself. There is not much to it. She says, "I believe in God. I'm not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice." She says, "It's just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself..."[ii]
The church of Sheilaism does not require generosity or money or even other people. But it is hard to see how this kind of religion can make us better, more complete or healed. It has no real content, no moral guidance, no weight of tradition, no healing but above all no community. There is no one else to challenge you if self-centeredness, or ignorance blinds you to the truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson exclaims, God, "does not act upon us from without… but spiritually through ourselves… the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old."[iii] I look around at you and I see God putting forth his life through this Cathedral, through the generosity that makes everything we do possible.
In our society, in Northern California especially, there is constant pressure to be competitive, to go it alone, to resist the very kind of community that human beings were meant for. But through Grace Cathedral, together in-person and online, we become Jesus' living body in the world. We believe what the Bible teaches us, that faith is involved in every aspect of life.
This does not mean our faith is perfect, only that we are trying very hard to let God transform the world through our lives together. Through our generosity, through volunteering, and working together God is shaping the modern world, just as God silently worked in the book of Ruth.
My sermon today has a postscript. Earlier I mentioned that we learn generosity before we learn about death. Rowan Williams writes about how sometimes in interviews famous people are asked how they want to be remembered at the end. “[A]s if the goal of life were to arrive at a condition of maturity and control, of wise and powerful action.”[iv]
In contrast to this picture, Williams talks about the way Jesus’ mother Mary could simply receive the Holy Spirit without spectacular effort. Williams writes, “What if this is really the purpose of our lives? What if the point of all we achieve, all we succeed in” and I would add all that we give, “is to teach us to receive more deeply and more peacefully?”
“As if what we need to produce by the time of our death is just – child-like simplicity? Being able at last just to be welcomed, to be embraced by the Real that we’ve so long neglected and even run away from? Whatever life is like on the far side of death, it’s a reasonable guess that it is not like anything we could have imagined. It could not be another episode in the great drama of Myself, my busy, worried, ambitious, talkative, fearful self.”
We give for the sake of ourselves so that we can become more mature, so that God can work through our generosity in the way of Ruth and Boaz. We give for the sake of this Cathedral so that authentic spiritual community can be possible here. Finally we give in the hope that we can learn to receive what we long for from God.
Let us pray: Most generous God in a world of scarcity and abundance, we thank you for what we have, especially for each other. You make us one body in Christ with the opportunity to serve you in new and unexpected ways always rejoicing in the strength and love of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[i] The Septuagint placed Ruth between Judges and 1 Samuel. The New Oxford Annotated Bible Revised Standard Version chapter introduction.
[ii] Robert Bellah, et. al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley Press, 1985) 221.
[iii] Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature," (the book, not the essay) in Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. Stephen Whicher. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957) 50.
[iv] Rowan Williams, Candles in the Dark: Faith, Hope and Love in a Time of Pandemic (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2020) 71-2.
We have a lot of questions for God and God seems to have a lot to tell us. But the bible is full of questions from the all-knowing God and from Jesus directed toward us. The divine questions are aimed straight at our distress, lament, pain, avoidance, pride and fears. Our answer might best be action.
San Francisco’s Beautiful Ugly Truth
“[W]however wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all” (Mk. 10).
How do you know if Christianity is true? Proving that there is a personal God or heaven, the trinity or the divinity of Christ might be difficult. Arguing that our religion is the best religion seems silly. I’d much rather hear about what I can learn from other religions than debate their relative deficiencies.
Instead I want to ask about perhaps the central teaching in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus is talking about status and its meaning in our life. Quite simply is it better for us as individuals and a society when people use power to dominate others, or should they act in Jesus’ words like “servants.” This question concerns every aspect of our social life. You can see it built into our material world.
- I want to begin with two things I love about San Francisco and what they say about our history. The first is Victorian houses. Between 1850 and 1900 about 40,000 of them were built in San Francisco.[i] The writer Thomas Aidala writes that the, “city was put together out of buildings that roar with fun, that never… take themselves so seriously that they forget to smile.”[ii] Victorian houses were built using the latest technology.[iii] They were thoroughly modern and made to look old. They were mostly sold to working and middle class people. Despite all the changes in real estate markets they still feel like eccentric mansions for ordinary people.
Another thing I love about San Francisco are the Sutro Baths out at Lands End.[iv] Adolf Sutro loved watching the waves at Fisherman’s Cove and in 1884 he built a living 100 foot by 100 foot aquarium. By 1887 it could be emptied of 250,000 gallons of water in five minutes. In 1888 Sutro started running a steam train (that started from the corner of Presidio and California). It cost a nickel (compared to the 20 cent Southern Pacific line).[v]
The Sutro Baths opened for bathing in 1896. At 500 feet long and 354 feet wide with six saltwater tanks, it was the largest indoor swimming complex in the world. Sutro had a passion for, “making amenities affordable for the common” person.[vi] But initially they excluded black people. After John Harris won a law suit in 1897 everyone was welcome.[vii] There could be as many as 8,000 visitors on a weekend day. The whole thing burned down in June 1966, but even the ruins are beautiful and available to everyone.
My point is that an idea is built into this place. Even in the past we had more millionaires here than other cities, but back then people understood that radical differences in wealth destabilized community and made it harder for the ones who served others to be respected. They wanted to make the really good things in life available to everyone.
I understand that our experience of inequality in this particular place is affected by markets, property arrangements and tax codes beyond our control. But something is missing at the heart of our experience of San Francisco today.
- The force of our gospel gets obscured because we do not know the full context of the story (which begins with Mk. 10:32). Jesus is walking along ahead of everyone. Mark explains that they are amazed and also afraid. Jesus takes his twelve closest friends aside and tells them exactly what is going to happen to him, that he will be condemned and then tortured to death.
Then in the next sentence James and John, the two brothers who with Peter constitute Jesus’ inmost circle, ask to be seated next to Jesus in his “glory.” We the hearers know the irony of this request because Jesus will be crucified. Despite being plainly told they still do not understand. This scene in which Jesus 1. tells the disciples what will happen to him, 2. they misunderstand and 3. Jesus tries to teach them, is repeated three times. To further emphasize the disciple’s refusal to see, these three scenes take place sequentially between two stories about Jesus healing blind people.[viii]
The cross, a suffering messiah who dies for the people, a new way to be human in which we no longer try to dominate others but serve them instead – this is hard for them and for us. On Saturday night we saw the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. In the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus longs for his friends to be with him they wear headphones and sleep through his moment of need. This seems like the nearly universal response to him.
Jesus gives his life as a ransom for many, so that we can be free. Jesus tries to show us how to be free from the constant preoccupation with status that destroys our life. And the cross, that cynical instrument of torture and death, cannot obscure this truth. The nations have rulers who lord it over them. Their great ones are tyrants. “But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant” (Mk. 10).
- Humans are not the only ones consumed by questions about status. Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky studies how various other primates (but particularly baboons) “lord it over” each other.[ix] Through MRI studies he concludes, that primates are, “fantastically attuned to status differences.” We perceive these differences subconsciously, in less time than it takes to blink our eye.[x]
High levels of inequality make us less likely to believe that other people can be trusted, less inclined to join groups. Inequality erodes social capital which is the trust, reciprocity and cooperation that we need to live together in peace. High inequality makes us treat each other more poorly.[xi] Those people who scientists of have studied and who especially value prestige and power seem less able to care about those who are less fortunate.[xii]
Furthermore lower socioeconomic status has an immensely detrimental effect on our health. It’s not just that the poor have bad health and everyone else is doing equally well. Every step down the ladder means worse health. This is not just because poor people have less access to healthcare. This phenomenon can be observed even in countries with socialized medicine. He concludes that the problem is that “the psychological stress” of having a low socioeconomic status is what decreases health.[xiii]
Sapolsky concludes writing, “When humans invented material inequality, they came up with a way of subjugating the low ranking like nothing ever before seen in the primate world.”[xiv]
I began by asking how we know if Christianity is true. A central part of the Gospel of Mark has to do with the role that status plays in our life. We are like the headphone wearing disciples. We cannot hear because we cannot imagine what it would be like to really be free of our attachment to status and power. But Jesus persists in calling us back home to God. He warns us that our preoccupation with status damages us as a society and as individuals.
Learning to put others first is how we realize this promise of freedom. This is not at all easy. We are entangled in so many contradictions. But church can help us to live in this new reality. We offer each other the chance to really act as if every single person has infinite value as a child of God, as if Jesus gave his life even for that person who irritates us most.
On 1 April 1989 there was a funeral in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, of the Empress Zita of Austria/Hungary, the widow of the last Emperor Charles 1 who died 70 years before. She was 96. It was a two hour service with 6000 people. They sang Mozart’s Requiem. Then they went to the church of the Capuchins – the burial place of the Hapsburgs. When the procession arrived, the doors were closed. The chamberlain knocked three times and one of the friars inside called out: “Who requests entry?”
The reply was formidable and spoke of a vanished Europe. “Her Majesty Zita, Empress of Austria, crowned Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galizia, Illyria, Queen of Jerusalem, Archduchess of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Cracow, Duchess of Lorraine, Salzburg – the list went with over twenty more titles. There then followed her orders which were not modest.
After all this the friar replied, “We do not know her. Who requires entry?” “Her Majesty Zita, Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary.” Again the reply came, “We do not know her. Who requires entry?” This time the chamberlain replied: “Our sister Zita, a poor mortal sinner.” And the gates were thrown open.[xv]
There is a desire in our hearts to live in equality which I see built into the landscape of this city. But still we lose ourselves in our own ego. We hunger for recognition in a way that set us at odds with others. And yet the gates of this Cathedral are thrown open for us.
I have always loved the “Brotherhood Window” in the South Transept. James and John, the brothers who were so blind to Jesus’ teachings and infuriated their fellow disciples are actually honored in the window at Jesus’ right and left hand. What they wanted was misguided and showed their ignorance and yet somehow their dream was realized two thousand years later in this Cathedral in a faraway land that they had never heard of. May the impossible contradictions of our life find resolution in God’s holiness.
Let us Pray: Dear God, give us peace in the restless slumber of our egotism. When the thought of you wakes in our hearts, let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies away in dismay but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile. Amen.
“A capable wife who can find?... She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue” (Prov. 31).
To the bath and to the table, to the prayers and to the word, God calls every seeking soul. This is the English translation of an inscription found on the bell of a Danish Lutheran church in the Upper Midwest. The church was the site of important liturgical movements that place baptism at the center of a Christian life. Every seeking soul, without exception, is called beloved by God. Through the waters of baptism, the prayers of the community, the living word proclaimed in our lives, the nourishment of Communion, we can be signs of the love that calls us.
“Do not get drunk with wine… but be filled with the spirit” (Ephesians 5).
- This morning I am going to teach you how to meditate, or at least how I meditate. But first I want to point out something that you may have already noticed.
On the corner of Arguello and Jackson you will find a stop sign with magical properties. Under certain circumstances it becomes invisible. Even though I am well aware of this phenomenon, I have run straight through the intersection without stopping twice. I’ve seen many other people do the same thing. It’s not hidden, or smaller, or less red or octagonal than other stop signs, but something about that intersection makes it hard to notice.
We never come close to really seeing what is in our field of vision. You realize this riding a bicycle around San Francisco. You can be in the very middle of an intersection and discover that a driver doesn’t even see you. My brother bought me a red helmet and a red jacket. I couldn’t believe what a big boost this gave to my visibility.
I believe that our experience of God is a little like this. For the most faithful believers and the most ardent atheists, God is in our field of vision or rather in the range of what we experience and yet most often we don’t notice. We are absorbed by inner dramas, daydreams about what we are going to do next, or thoughts about other people, regrets about the past, fear about the future, politics, etc. So we just don’t see God.
The purpose of this striking Cathedral, with these majestic columns and the light filtering through these arresting stained glass windows and the extraordinary music, is getting us to notice God who is with us not just at this moment but at all times.
I do not know why God chooses to appear in this way to us. I do not know why this seems pretty much like the nature of reality for human beings. I can’t really imagine what any other existence would be like. Many people I know have had the experience of God’s brightness being so obvious that they couldn’t help but notice. And many of the same people have had times when they were desperate to recognize God but couldn’t find anything Holy.
Meditation helps me to really experience God’s companionship throughout each day. It helps me to be less at the mercy of my fantasies and worries, and more present in what is really happening.
The parish where I served before coming to Grace Cathedral, St. Peter’s in Port Chester, New York, was always overflowing with food. Literally. Feeding people was in this community’s DNA: they hosted a soup kitchen 13 times a week, feeding thousands of people; area grocery stores dropped off endless crates of food donations for passersby to rifle through on the lawn; and there was almost always someone cooking up something delicious in the kitchen. Every Thanksgiving, we gave away 200 turkeys. One day, someone we’d never seen before knocked on the door in the pouring rain and, without explanation, dropped off 1000 bagels. The quantity of food that was served and eaten on any given day was staggering and, even on the days when the soup kitchen volunteers were forced to forage through the pantry and scrounge up a meal out of whatever odds and ends they could find, there was always more than enough to go around. Most days, I was sent home from work laden down with food that, no matter how hard I tried to refuse, I couldn’t: steaming styrofoam containers of soup kitchen leftovers, whole chickens that wouldn’t fit in the freezer, heaps of produce leftover at the end of the day that otherwise would have gone to waste. I rarely brought a lunch to work and could go weeks without needing to grocery shop.
Prior to serving that community, I might have told you that the Biblical feeding of the thousands was an improbable or perhaps exaggerated miracle, but now? I believe it because I have seen it, over and over again. I believe because I have experienced miraculous, divine abundance in my own body and tasted its sweetness. Feasting in a community scarred by food insecurity. Generosity flowing out of real and urgent poverty. Abundance overflowing despite fears of scarcity and without calculating the cost. Community being built while organizing canned goods, chopping onions, and ladling out big scoops of spaghetti.
These feeding miracles, where Jesús and his disciples find themselves in the midst of an enormous, hungry crowd and turn a preposterously small quantity of bread and fish into a lavish feast, appear in slightly different forms in all four Gospels. In every case, the disciples balk and scoff at Jesús’ command to feed the crowds with so little food. These stories speak to a universal, hard-wired human fear that runs deep in all of us: a fear that there will not be enough. Not enough food, not enough money, not enough jobs.
But the fear goes deeper than panic over a lack of material things. Underneath all of those very real and very practical fears, there’s an undercurrent of terror, a demonic voice that plants a seed of suspicion in our hearts that there’s not enough love to go around. Not enough attention. Not enough respect and recognition. That fear, when it runs unchecked, drives us to compete for resources, even when they are abundant. To hoard and stockpile, to bolster our sense of security however we can. That fear makes us defensive and anxious. When we are in its grip, we fail to recognize the abundance of what we really have - and the even greater abundance that would be possible if we opened our hands instead of clenching our fists.
When we read these stories about the feeding of thousands, it’s easy to get caught up in the technicalities, proposing theories for how exactly Jesús was able to make this tiny amount of bread and fish last for so many people. Maybe everyone ate only a tiny crumb. Maybe the people in the crowd were inspired by Jesús’ generosity and added their own little bits of food to the basket as it passed them. Maybe a lot of things. We really don’t know.
But I venture to say that, when we overanalyze the miracle, we’re missing the point. This story exists, not as a how-to guide for hosting a massive picnic with limited resources, but as a challenge to all the ways we have convinced ourselves that there is not enough to go around - or that we are powerless to change the status quo. Where we have bought into a false narrative of scarcity, the story of the loaves and fishes is a powerful counter-witness to God’s outrageous abundance. Where we feel paralyzed by overwhelm at the tasks that face us, the Gospel reminds us that small actions, undertaken with great love, can cause a cascade effect, bringing healing and nourishment to thousands, without regard for our limited sense of what should be possible.
We all have our own loaves and fishes stories. They might not have anything to do with bread or seafood, it’s true. But we all have had moments in our lives when we got more than we thought we deserved, or when something was easier than we expected, or when there was, in fact, more than enough food to feed all our guests. Moments when God challenged our fear of there never being enough and gave us a glimpse of that heavenly abundance that God always dreams of bringing into reality on earth. I invite you to take a moment and reflect - where are those loaves and fishes stories in your lives? Those moments that are beacons of grace in times of struggle, signposts in the wilderness of our fear, and nourishment to keep going forward on our own journey with God? Where have we encountered abundance beyond our wildest imagination? How has it transformed us?
The key to understanding the miracle of the loaves and fishes isn’t actually in the Gospel story at all. It’s in one extraordinary verse from the letter to the Ephesians that, not by accident, the lectionary pairs with this story from John’s Gospel. It’s a verse that, if you’ve ever attended Evensong or prayed evening prayer, might be familiar to you because it’s one of the options for closing our common worship: “Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” Repeat.
It’s one of my favorite Bible verses of all time. It reminds us that, while all power is God’s, we are the vessels. God doesn’t act in a vacuum. God works through us. Through our hands and hearts and words. Through our fragile and imperfect human bodies, God is able to turn a bread crust and a few fish into a feast for countless thousands. Through us, even through our fear and doubt, God is able, not just to exceed our expectations, but to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Grace upon grace.
In my own experience, the miracles of abundance that God works through our human bodies usually aren’t especially glamorous. They tend to involve things like unloading 70 pallets of canned goods in 90 degree heat, washing towering stacks of crusty serving dishes, or figuring out how many favors to call in to keep 200 turkeys frozen when they unexpectedly get delivered a week before Thanksgiving. I don’t imagine the Biblical feeding of the thousands as a serene, peaceful picnic - I imagine it more like the average soup kitchen line, with people squabbling over who was there first, trying to cut the line, and complaining that, actually, they don’t really like bread and fish and would like an alternative option please. We don’t do ourselves any favors when we romanticize this story. Miracles can be gritty and embodied and human and still be miraculous.
The question becomes - as people who have received such abundance, who have seen and heard and tasted this grace beyond measure, how will we live differently? Will we let these experiences of grace start to change our story, start to challenge and calm our deep seated fears that there isn’t enough? Can we begin to trust in God’s abundance and relinquish our death grip on those things we think will keep us safe and secure? Can we begin to share our own loaves and fishes without fretting over how far they will go or how much we will have left for ourselves? Can we trust that we have enough? Can we trust that we are enough?
Glory to God, whose power working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesús forever and ever. Amen.
In her 1985 comic strip, Dykes to watch out for, the cartoonist, Alison Bechdel, first introduced what we now know as the Bechdel test: a set of criteria that seeks to measure the representation of women in media. The test has 3 simple parts: to pass, the piece of media needs to have 1) at least 2 women in it, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something other than a man. The Bechdel test is an imperfect barometer of representation, but it is a useful starting point when engaging with media. Mostly, it is stunning how much of the content we consume does not even come close to passing.
And the Bible is no exception to this trend. You need to scour the Scriptures very closely to find stories that pass the Bechdel test and, even then, most of them just barely fit the bill. Mary and Elizabeth? Close, but they’re talking about their babies in utero who are both...male. Ruth and Naomi? Also good candidates - the Book of Ruth features many conversations between these two women, but even they spend a lot of time figuring out how to set Ruth up with Boaz. The truth is, the Bible speaks about women plenty, but it rarely lifts up non-male voices. A slim minority of the women mentioned in the Bible actually have names. And Biblical women are often typecast in much the same way the modern media slots women into narrow,
one-dimensional tropes - Eve, the temptress; Mary Magdalene the repentant sinner. None of this is especially surprising. The Bible is a product of its time and cultural milieu. It describes a world that was built for and by men, and that had little use for recording the private lives of women. But the Bible, subversive and holy text that it is, also regularly transcends the world it describes, giving us glimpses of a different way of being, a new, divine world being born among us right in the midst of our ordinary, imperfect existence.
In our Gospel reading today, we see the gap between those two worlds, in another story that comes close (but not quite) to passing the Bechdel test. The story of the beheading of John
the Baptist is most certainly not where most people go when they search the Bible for subversive, feminist texts. Herodias and her daughter are not celebrated as Biblical heroines like Ruth, Esther, or Mary. In contrast to the revered “good girls” of the Bible, who follow God’s word and establish themselves as moral exemplars, we have before us today two Biblical “bad girls”. Women who scheme and plot and arrange the murder of a prophet out of their festering resentment. Women whom history casts as villains.
But are they really so bad? Or is that just what we’ve been conditioned, by centuries of patriarchy, to think? Let’s take a closer look. This story, for all its complexity, is a very rare account in the Gospels of 2 women speaking to each other without a man present, and the ONLY instance in the entire Bible of a mother speaking to her daughter (ponder that for a second - I didn’t believe that could be possible when I stumbled across that factoid, but it is true). It is a grisly tale of blame, oppression, and violence. It is a story of desperate, angry women who do what they need to do to survive in a world that isn’t built for them.
The writer of Mark’s Gospel sets the scene: Jesús is doing deeds of power and arousing the suspicion and fear of those in authority, including Herod. The death of John the Baptist is really only included here as a flashback, because Herod hears about Jesús and is paranoid that John, whom he beheaded, has come back to life. Herod had John arrested and imprisoned on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. John had (correctly) told Herod that it wasn’t lawful for him to marry his brother’s wife while his brother was still living. And so, we’re told, Herodias (interestingly, not Herod) holds a grudge against John, wants to kill him, but can’t. Whoa. Let’s stop there for a moment.
Who is at fault here? Is it really Herodias who, oh, by the way, doesn’t even really have her own name but is referred to as a derivative, a possession of her powerful husband? Or is it
the oppressive force of misogyny that allows Herodias to be handled like a trading card, shuttled around between powerful husbands with no say in the matter, only to then be accused by a
sharp-tongued prophet of violating religious law? If you were Herodias, wouldn’t you be annoyed too? Is she really the deserving target of John the Baptist’s ire?
Fast forward - Herod throws himself a birthday party, a lavish and probably debaucherous celebration. If we read between the lines, we can infer that his wife and daughter (who is also called Herodias - take note, even royal women are lumped together into one, indistinguishable, subservient category) weren’t invited. They lurk in the wings until Herod calls for his daughter and asks her to dance for his guests. This is not a cute, innocent, or voluntary dance - this is a forced dance of oppression and abuse, the objectification of a child to satisfy the appetites of powerful men. In works of art as well as in theology, Herodias is depicted as a morally depraved, promiscuous temptress but, here again, we must ask ourselves - who really deserves the blame? Is it the child? Or is it the people who forced her to dance in the first place? We might think the answer should be obvious, but a closer look at our world today reminds us of how much easier it is to place blame on the victim than to face pernicious systems of oppression head on - the sky high juvenile incarceration rates of BIPOC children in our country and the continued detention of migrant children at our border speak for themselves.
But this dance, fraught though it is, brings an unexpected opportunity. Herodias’ performance pleases Herod, who, suddenly overcome with emotion, beckons his daughter to come close and offers her anything her heart desires, up to half his kingdom. It is a ludicrous proposition, illustrative of Herod’s capriciousness - what would this oppressed child, who doesn’t even have her own name, do with half a kingdom?
But Herodias is savvy. She sees Herod’s offer for what it is - a Golden ticket - and runs to consult her mother on how to best leverage it. And, of all the things they could have asked for, they request the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Why? Why this? Perhaps it’s because, in this deeply imperfect and broken world, this was as close as these women could get to an assertion of freedom. John the Baptist wasn’t the real source of Herodias’ anger, but perhaps he was the only target she could safely lash out against. Power repressed will eventually find an outlet, healthy or not. Violence begets violence. Realistically, there wasn’t much Herodias could have asked for that would have measurably improved her own quality of life and her daughter’s. Life inside the palace, miserable though it may have been, still brought more security than life anywhere else. These women were trapped. And trapped people do desperate things.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning what Herodias did. Murder is still murder. There is no turning her into a Biblical heroine. But there is so much more to this story than meets the eye. Grisly and distressing as it is, this tale paints a picture of the world that Jesús came to save - and the oppression that Jesús came to liberate us from. Toppling the thrones of the powerful and lifting up the oppressed. Sweeping away an unjust system where blame is placed on victims while the powerful escape unscathed. Breaking cycles of violence and creating a world where all are free to exercise their own agency. A world where we don’t need tests to measure representation because everyone is known to be worthy of their own name, their own voice, and their own story
The portion of the Gospel we read today is not a particularly hopeful chapter, and that’s ok. It’s one scene of a much broader story of salvation, just as the darkest chapters of our own stories are part of a much bigger narrative tapestry. But, if we want the healing, the new life, the redemption that Jesús offers, we cannot erase the ugly and unflattering bits of our history. We
must bring them to light of God’s grace. And we must read these stories - our stories - critically, examining our own complicity, our own tendencies to blame victims and turn a blind eye to oppressors, our own perpetuation of cycles of violence, so that we can begin to welcome in the new world God longs to build in our midst.
Let us pray now, for the coming of that world:
Just and loving God, grant us the expansiveness of your vision. Where we are quick to assign blame, give us curiosity to look deeper. Where we reduce our fellow human beings to tropes and labels, give us courage to listen to one another’s stories. Where we feel constrained by the limitations of this world, give us strength to shatter walls of prejudice and oppression. And hasten the coming of your dream, where every human being may live in dignity. Amen.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth… when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy” (Job 38)?
For a season we lived on the edge of an enormous beach wildlife preserve on the island of Maui. Every morning before dawn I would take my ten foot stand up paddle board parallel to the shore going upwind. I traveled over fabulous green reefs and because I was standing, I could see through perfectly clear water deep into the world of sea turtles, octopuses and tropical fish. Building morning winds would blow me through the whitecaps back home.
To surf during a favorable tide sometimes I would paddle later in the day to a downwind reef. Then I would fly along the face of mirror-like waves feeling a perfect freedom. As the wind grew stronger I knew I had to leave soon before it became impossible to make it back.
I remember one Saturday just riding a few more waves that I should have and then facing a kind of wall of wind as I turned back. Lying down flat and paddling the board was only enough to get me half way home. Feeling humiliated I had to carry the paddle and heavy board along the beach through howling winds with my in-laws and friends watching. Wind and chaotic seas can remind us that we are not in control. There is something about God’s creation that attracts me even to the point of danger.
Henry David Thoreau writes, “I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows… Give me a wildness that no civilization can endure… Nature is a personality so vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features…” “The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.”[1] For Thoreau that “Intelligence” is God.
While modern technology has made it possible to understand and control the world in new ways we still inhabit a wild universe that we can never fully understand. For thousands of years wise people have studied the place of human beings in the world. The poetic beauty which I love in the Book of Job stands in this tradition. Today we will study Job together. Our homework will be to read the last four chapters of the book.
Scholars guess that an anonymous author composed the Book of Job in seventh century BCE. It tells the story of a fabulously wealthy man named Job who lived in the distant country of Uz. None of the characters in this book are Israelites. It is impossible to place any events in history. All of this helps us to avoid being distracted by any historical or cultural questions. It makes the writing feel timeless, as if it could have just happened.
After providing a quick inventory of Job’s many possessions and giving a short account of his piety, the scene changes. Suddenly the reader finds herself in the heavenly realms at a kind of senior staff meeting. In it God describes Job as “blameless and upright.” God says that Job, “fears God and turns away from evil” (Job. 1). Among the “heavenly beings” there is a figure called by the Hebrew word “Satan” which means adversary, accuser, prosecutor.
Addressing God, Satan argues that of course Job is righteous. You have, “blessed the work of his hands.” But if you were to take these things away he would “curse you to your face.” And so God delivers Job over to Satan and terrible things happen to him.
In one day Job learns that all of his possessions have been stolen or destroyed. His children, who are in the habit of feasting together at their eldest brother’s house, are all killed after the building collapses in a wind storm. At first Job shows a miraculous composure. He says, “the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away, blessed be the name of the LORD.”
At this point as the first chapter draws to a close the reader might think that this book will answer the question of why God allows suffering. But it never does.
Job has three friends Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamanthite who go to console and comfort him. For seven days and nights they sit with him without saying a word.
For the author these three represent the best that ancient Near Eastern philosophy has to offer about the nature of the world and human beings. Each one speaks and then Job rebuts them in turn. When you get right down to it their argument is simple. It goes like this: “God is just. God arranges all things according to the rules of justice. Because Job is suffering, somehow he must have sinned.”
They reason that Job must be guilty of some secret wrong-doing. So they even go as far as to make up sins that they suggest Job must have committed.
As Job is tormented by painful illnesses and the assertion of friends who tell him that it is his own fault, he loses control. He knows he’s innocent. Just as God said at the beginning he is “blameless and upright.” He starts contradicting himself, wondering out loud what is happening to him. He used to think that God was just, but he simply cannot reconcile this with his suffering.
Job even suggests that God, “mocks at the calamity of the innocent” (Job. 9:23). Throughout these speeches Job no longer speaks coherently. He defends God, cries out in pain, doubts God’s goodness, confesses his own ignorance and finally in his last speech he demands that God hear him. He insists on seeing God face to face.
At this point another younger friend named Elihu suddenly appears. Elihu suggests that perhaps Job’s suffering is to prevent him from committing a future sin or that it is a way that God is shaping his character for the better.
And then Job gets his heart’s desire. God answers him through a voice coming out of a storm, a whirlwind. But rather than giving a straightforward response, God answers with a series of questions. These lines invite the hearers to imagine the vast perspective in time and space that comes with being God.
God says, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth… when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?... Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you?” (Job. 38).
God asks Job questions about massive planetary forces and distant constellations of stars, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow… Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion.” I love how God then asks Job if he understands the intimate details of other living creatures like lions, ravens, oxen, asses, and even ostriches. God says, “Do you know where the mountain goats give birth, Do you observe the calving of the deer?” God even tells Job what a battle feels like from the perspective of a war horse (“When the trumpet sounds, it says ‘Aha!’ from a distance it smells the battle” (Job. 39).
God has the power required to fashion the worlds and at the same time knows the intimate secrets of every living creature. There is a logic to saying God is just, therefore the world is just, therefore sin is punished by suffering. But God points to a much deeper logic that still eludes us today. Job and his friends have relied on the false assumption that the tiny horizon of their life experience is enough to understand and accuse God.
In the Old Testament the sea stands as a symbol for chaos and disorder that threatens human life. God goes on to talk about mythical animals that personify this energy: the behemoth and leviathan. In the Bible these are symbols of danger. God’s world is good but it is not safe.
Why is there suffering? God does not answer this question except to point out that we live in an amazing, mysterious world that is more apt to evoke our awe than to prevent us from suffering. In the end Job apologizes to God and acknowledges his foolishness.
To the friends, God says that Job has spoken rightly. Certainly God does not suggest by this that everything Job said was perfectly accurate. What I think this means is that God understands Job’s struggles and honesty. God appreciates Job’s desire to encounter holiness. I think this is what God wants from us too.
In the end God restores everything that Job lost – his possessions and strangely in a dreamlike way even a new family. These things are not a reward for having believed or acted rightly, but just a generous gift like the gifts we receive when we really see the beauty around us.
My friends this COVID time has been like a terrible storm at sea but here we are together again. Jesus was not asleep on a cushion in the stern of our boat. Jesus has guided us and brought us to this new shore.
During this time many of us have learned like Job to bring our disappointments, despair, even our criticisms and indignation to God. We have realized again the futility of thinking that we can stand even with God, or see the world in the way that God does. We are growing up to recognize that we do not have to defend God’s ways to critics, but have only to speak of the hope that God inspires in us.
We have begun to realize even more deeply that we inhabit an unsafe world, whose beauty, wildness and mystery will always surprise us. And that God’s love and care for every creature will always exceed our understanding.
Let us pray:
Gracious God, thank you for gathering us together, for bringing us safely to the beginning of this day in which we might behold you in a new light. Thank you for the mysterious wildness that surrounds us and inspire us to preserve the richness of your creation. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
[1] Henry David Thoreau, “Walking,” The Natural History Essays (Salt Lake City, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 1980) 113, 130, 128.
What is the Kingdom of God like? This is a question that people of faith have wrestled with and argued about for generations. In the Gospels, Jes s devotes a great deal of time to spinning parables that compare the reign of God to images and situations taken from the ordinary lives of his listeners. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, a pearl, a woman who loses a coin, a sower; it is like everything imaginable and like nothing we know. The kingdom of God is a bit of an enigma - close enough for us to glimpse in our own lives, but not fully realized yet. It is the dream that God has for us, the world God longs to build among us. But, while it gets a great deal of attention in the Gospels, wondering about the nature of the Kingdom of God is not unique to the time of Jes s. These questions of authority, kingship, and God’s role in it all have their roots deep in the stories of the people of Israel, including the portion of 1 Samuel we heard today.
Where the Gospels use parables to describe the Kingdom of God, 1 Samuel offers us a story: a story of how God’s kingdom, God’s dream - plays out on the canvas of human history, complete with plenty of plot twists and unexpected detours. In this story, tension occurs when God’s dream collides with human ambition and greed. God adapts, listens, and responds, bending the arc of human history toward justice. Here, God and the people of Israel desire two incompatible things - and through the divine engagement with that tension we glimpse what the Kingdom of God is like.
“Holy Father, protect them in your name… so that they may be one” (Jn. 17)
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you say to your friends? How would you say it? The last words of Jesus in the Gospel of John are not a linear argument building to a logical conclusion. Instead they have the form of an ancient rhetorical device called amplification.
This speech and the three letters of John share a similar style of cyclical repetition. They use the same vocabulary of hyperbole and exaggeration. They draw stark contrasts between light and darkness, life and death, love and hate, good and evil, truth and falsehood. The goal is to make God’s love really live in our hearts.
This is Jesus’ prayer to God for the sake of his friends who do not feel ready to go on without him. He says, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (Jn. 17). Different followers of Jesus have different ideas of what it means to be one. You will certainly encounter many who believe that being one means thinking and believing all the same things.
But I believe we are one in the way a family is one. My mother’s family first immigrated to North America when her oldest brother decided to go to Princeton instead of Oxford. That was where he learned to play the ukulele and Fats Waller on the piano. He married the daughter of an Anglican bishop and had a long successful career in finance. In retirement he went sailing and took up photography. My mother’s sister on the other hand had an entirely different personality. She married a working class man. The two of them were converted in Northern England by Mormon missionaries who convinced them to move to Heber, Arizona where she was passionate about dietary supplements.
Three totally different people – one family. That for me is what it means to be one. The calendar of saints shows this, as does the art in our Cathedral. In here we have everyone from the vast lancet window in the apse of Queen Margaret of Scotland to the tiny plate on the step below the baptismal font honoring the former Dean’s wife Janette Limmerick Bartlett. We have stained glass windows with Mary Magdalene and Bridgid, the soldier Martin of Tours along with Walter Rauschenbusch and the Christian Socialists.
Today I want to talk about three figures at the bottom of the Theological Reform Window: a Lutheran, a Roman Catholic and a Jew. This is the first sermon in the history of the world about Paul Tillich, Karl Rahner and Martin Buber.
love one another as I have loved you.
Did she think I had been good?
That’s what I asked my mother that Sunday after church . . . of course you were good honey; you were made good; it’s just some of your behavior that we might revisit.
Ah, so she’d found me out. Sitting there in that pew, in one of those awful crinkly dresses she liked me to wear, I couldn’t take the stiff collar and frou-frou accessories that itched when I brushed against them. So, giving the side-eye and seeing she was busy singing the hymn, I’d slipped them off, one-by-one, the belt, the collar and . . . this was the coup de gras, those awful white, lace socks.
Problem was, having refused to carry a purse, I had nowhere to put the irritating frills.
I did what I thought any sensible and respectable daughter of my mother would do and rolled everything up purposefully into a ball which I carried out like a champ as we left the church that day.
Mother wanted me to be a lady. And I wanted to be myself. In our brief seven years together, we would come to an agreement of sorts that who I should be was ultimately less about wearing the kind of clothes she liked and more about being the best version of myself I could be.
That was the message I’ve carried with me anyway all these years.
love one another as I have loved you
Like an elder guiding a child, Jesus taught us how to be in relationship.
Jesus gave that as his take-away message in this portion of his Farewell Discourse.
In stark contrast to the longstanding and unfair standards for motherhood, and the impossible straights mothers have endured during Covid, Jesus’s call to love, while implying its share of sacrifice is not a call for a selfless love – it is not a command requiring a dissolution of self for the other, but a grounding love that begins with God and a love that is communal.
Yes, we are relational and as Jesus’s story reveals, relationships are full of loss and potential.
In my mother’s story, letting me emerge meant some loss for her – I wouldn’t be her “little me”. . , and her letting go of that, so that I might thrive, seems an act of love. . . a redirection of her own wishes so that mine might emerge and our relationship might flourish.
Any of us who has cared for children has encountered our own agenda presenting itself in our relationships.
But of course, Jesus’s directive to love isn’t for parents alone! It is for all of us in all kinds of relationships and contexts.
And before the message seems overly domesticated, please note that while it is a simple love we are called to, it is also radical.
On the one hand, what Jesus calls us to is ordinary or at least instinctive for us – like a child needing to assert herself and yet wanting to please her mother . . . it is our nature to need other people and we thrive on interpersonal response.
This need for each other made social distancing during Covid tremendously hard on us.
But beyond the pandemic, deep social and racial traumas demand our attention too.
Four hundred years into it, white supremacy kneels on, unrestrained capitalism warms our planet, burns our throats and coaxes our children into addiction, and for what . . . so that eight men can possess more wealth than 3.6 billion people combined do?
These truths require a radical love.
The love of this kind calls for communal and sacrificial work to change systems of power and privilege.
It requires relinquishing outdated and narrow views of the world and ceding space for others.
There will be loss and there is potential.
After fourteen months of isolation, as our world opens up again, we have a chance like never before to apply the law of love John’s Gospel presents.
Over these many months, we’ve loved each other by staying apart. But in our physical distance, a collective spiritual upwelling of truths has boiled over that demand society’s reckoning with them.
We’ll need to make room for healing along the way before the joy of Easter’s new life is apparent.
There seems a kind of numbness to what had been outrage and a flatness to what may be new life.
I felt it last weekend at an outdoor gathering of friends. Finally, vaccinated, we could be together in person . . . but being together didn’t bring the exuberance I had expected . . . there was a palpable remove . . . My friends described feeling worn out when they had hoped to feel unfettered and activated.
Last Monday the New York Times published an article titled, “There’s a name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.”
“Languishing,” the author explains, “is . . . the void between depression and flourishing—the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness but you’re not the picture of mental health either . . .”
The desert mothers and fathers in the 4th century – early Christians who had lived as ascetic monks called such a state of spiritual misery Acedia – a state of restlessness and an inability to pray or work a state that led to hatred of nearly everything.
Kathleen Norris, wrote in her book Acedia, “For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go.”
We’ll come through this time. Let’s continue together.
Grace Cathedral is calling 2021 the year of healing. What might that healing look like for you? How might we heal together so that we can love as we are called to love?
Let’s begin with prayer, personal and communal, to bring us into the awareness of the very love we need in order to meet the reality of our social and spiritual crises.
It is a love offered to all of us . . . mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends.
We’ll be regathering soon. What a blessing it will be.
Come however you are feeling. We want to know how you are.
Come however you like to dress. We want to see you thrive.
Together we will encounter God’s love and bring it to the world.
I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing;
but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God” (1 Jn. 4).
We all know regret. It comes over us as we remember a quarrel with a person we love, or recall the pain we felt when a cherished relationship was broken. The poet Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) married Andrée Schafer a brilliant painter who suffered from epilepsy. In the spring of 1927 the two of them hitchhiked from Seattle down the West Coast sleeping under bridges along the way.[i]
When they arrived in San Francisco the two camped on Mount Tamalpais and immediately knew that this is the place where they wanted to stay. Andrée painted. Kenneth wrote and participated in the 1934 waterfront strike. By the end of the 1930’s they were quarreling, having affairs and then separated. Andrée’s seizures grew more severe and she died in 1940. Elsa Gidlow a mutual friend scattered her ashes in Steep Ravine, on the way to Stinson Beach.
Kenneth Rexroth wrote several poems about Andrée and the watersheds of Mount Tamalpais. Let me read one:
“Now once more gray mottled buckeye branches / Explode their emerald stars, / And alders smoulder in a rosy smoke / Of innumerable buds. / I know that spring again is splendid / As ever, the hidden thrush / As sweetly tongued, the sun as vital - / But these are the forest trails that we walked together, / These paths, ten years together. / We thought the years would last forever, /”
“They are all gone now, the days / We thought would not come for us are here . / Bright trout poised in the current - / The racoon’s track at the water’s edge - / A bittern booming in the distance - / Your ashes scattered on this mountain - / Moving seaward on this stream.”[ii]
In a sense every marriage is an island distant to us. And we do not really know what happened to the Rexroths. But this feeling of beauty, loss and distance, and perhaps regret, lies close to the Gospel of John and the end of Jesus’ life. My sermon today has three parts: the vine, the branches and the fruit.
[i] Tom Killion, “Poetic Histories. The Sleeping Lady: Invention and Appropriation,” Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, History, and Prints (Berkeley, California: Heydey Press, 2009) 94ff.
[ii] Rexroth wrote this poem at about the age of 36. Kenneth Rexroth, “Andrée Rexroth,” The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth (Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2003) 220.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want” (Psalm 23).
- “When I was born the common view was that nurture decided almost everything. In the decades that followed the emphasis shifted to nature. In the last twenty years, people have talked more broadly about the way nature and nurture propel each other… but having children has made me wonder if a third element is involved, some unknowable inflection of spirit or divinity.” Tomorrow’s Forum guest Andrew Solomon wrote these words in his book about exceptional children in ordinary families called Far from the Tree.[i]
It is one of the most important books I have read in the last decade with chapters titled “Deaf,” “Dwarfs,” “Down Syndrome,” “Autism,” “Disability,” “Prodigies,” “Rape,” “Crime,” “Transgender.” He writes about how important it is for parents of severely disabled children to believe in something bigger than one’s self, something like God.[ii] He feels convinced that love does not come in finite quantities but that every kind of love ultimately supports other kinds of love.
Solomon writes about the “great social experiment called deinstitutionalization” which reduced the number of people suffering from schizophrenia in long-term custodial care in the United States from more than a half a million in 1950 to some forty thousand today.[iii] Now “150,000 people with schizophrenia are homeless; one in five people with schizophrenia is homeless in any given year.”[iv]
Solomon explains the isolation and loneliness of schizophrenia. Usually this disease emerges in late adolescence after parents and children have bonded. He writes that like Alzheimer’s it is, “an illness not of accrual but of replacement and deletion, rather than obscuring the previously known person, this disease to some extent eliminates that person.” He explains the tragedy of this disease which can, “take away the ability to connect to or love or trust another person, the full use rational intelligence… the basic faculty of physical self-care and large areas of self-awareness and analytic clarity.”
Solomon says, “Most famously, the schizophrenic disappears into an alternative world of voices that he erroneously perceives to be external.” Sometimes this person experiences visual and even olfactory hallucinations that, “make a world full of actual threats into a writhing hell of inescapable terrorization.”[v]
[i] Andrew Solomon, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity (NY: Scribner, 2012)
[ii] “Paradoxically, however, parents of disabled children often achieve a feeling of control by making a firm and positive affirmation of their lack of control. The most important thing, often, is a belief in something bigger than one’s own experience. The most common source of coherence is religion, but it has many mechanisms. You can believe in God, in the human capacity for good, in justice, or simply love.” “Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.” Ibid., 371 and 700.
[iii] Ibid., 314.
[iv] It probably goes without saying that from 1950 to 2010 the population increased from 157.8 million to 312.2 million. Ibid., 329.
[v] Ibid., 295.
- What a time… what a time for us to hear Jesus say, “touch me and see” (Lk. 24). So many of my friends have not touched another person for months. Our vast universe of touch has shrunk to a tiny island containing only one or two other persons. Never before did I fully appreciate the ritual of shaking hands in church, or the power of physical connection.
A global crisis of intimacy continues to unfold all around us. This is the third week of the seven week Easter Season (it’s one week longer than Lent). During this time we consider how Jesus appears to his friends after his death and the unexpected mixture of their responses to him. Standing together on the threshold of great changes this is a time to wonder at the strangeness of resurrection, and of anything truly new and alive.
It is also the season when we explore the possibility of a deeper intimacy with God. After his death when Jesus encounters his friends they respond in a wide variety of ways. Even after she sees angels, when Jesus appears to his friend Mary Magdalene she confuses him for the gardener (Jn. 20). Thomas sees and believes (Jn. 20) but the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus also fail to recognize him.
Today’s Gospel from the Book of Luke comes immediately after his friends share what they saw on the road to Emmaus. When the whole group also sees Jesus they feel “startled and terrified.” They think Jesus is a ghost. Even after he explains, after he tells them to touch him, after he shows them the wounds on his hands and feet – that still is not enough. In the crucial next sentence Luke explains, “… in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.” And so Jesus seeks to prove his physical reality by sharing a meal with them.
My friend Matt Boulton points out that this story vividly describes how doubt is naturally a part of faith. He makes the point that when it comes to the resurrection perhaps the goal for a follower of Jesus is not, “a settled, solemn “belief.” Instead the last story in Luke’s gospel suggests that our response should be a “blend of joy, disbelief, and wondering,” that this is the truly authentic experience a miracle.[i]
[i] Matthew Boulton, “Touch: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 3,” SALT, 12 April 2021.
“Like last week, this is a perfect time to name, affirm, and explore the role of doubt and disbelief in the life of faith. Should a disciple’s goal be a settled, solemn “belief”? Luke’s story suggests otherwise. A blend of joy, disbelief, and wondering would seem much closer to the astonishment a miracle is supposed to engender — and after all, such a state of joy/disbelief/wonder may well keep our hearts and minds humble and open to whatever the Spirit may do next. Viewed from this angle, it may be more orthodox, not less, to say (with a twinkle in our eyes), “I am astounded by the physical resurrection!” rather than (with flat solemnity) “I am convinced of it.” Herein lies a glimpse of the difference between mere “belief” and a living, growing faith. These ancient stories, to which we rightly return again and again, aim to astonish us, to leave us “taken aback,” to call into question our assumptions about what may or may not be "possible" and “impossible,” and so to invite us into an open-minded, open-hearted posture of disbelief, wonder, and joy.”
https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2018/4/10/faith-and-doubt-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-easter-3
“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord...” (Jn. 20).
Mostly we live on the shallow surface. We usually assume we understand the facts, that the everyday world exists in the way that it appears to us. But at certain moments we the vast depths of our unconscious life startles us. Out of seemingly nothing there arise titanic fears, desires and feelings that we do not understand. These forces grip us. They shape our thoughts and actions. Yes, we are rational beings. But there is so much more. In many respects we are a mystery to ourselves. Karl Barth writes that for us the truth is like a butterfly escaping through the fingers of a child (471).[i]
[i] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3.1 The Doctrine of Reconciliation tr. G.W. Bromiley (NY: T & T Clark, 2004) 471.
Today we will talk about why it is important to go to church, to keep sabbath. But before we get to this I want to share a story about one person’s answer to the question, “What are your reasons for loving life?” Jacques Lusseyran (1924-1971) made this the subject of his biography in a book translated from French called: And There Was Light.
In the 1970’s Werner Erhard (1935-) gave controversial seminars around the Bay Area as part of the Human Potential Movement. He pointed out how difficult it is to really change your life. He offered strategies that might help. Erhard believed that any form of personal transformation begins with language, with the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.[i]
[i] Therapy, a major life crisis like a divorce or career change, going back to school are ways that people try to transform their lives. These too often involve changing our context or story. I’m using a summary of Erhard from the following book. Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008), 14-17.
The Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) wrote the following words in the middle of the twentieth century. “The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with insistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythms that are not those of the engineer.”[i]
[i] Thomas Merton, “Rain and the Rhinoceros,” Raids on the Unspeakable (1964) also published in The Norton Book of Nature Writing ed. Robert Finch and John Elder (NY: Norton, 1990) 598-607.
How can you be healed spiritually this Lent? In 2003 it would have been hard to predict what was about to happen in professional British bicycle racing. Since 1908 British riders had won only one gold medal in the Olympic Games. In 110 years they had never won a single Tour de France. Their performance was so mediocre that some top manufacturers refused to sell them gear because they thought it would hurt sales if other pros saw them using it.[i]
[i] James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones (NY: Avery, 2018) 13-15.
In the cosmic forecast, the cloud, or overshadowing, signals the coming of the Holy Spirit, God's eternal word taking flesh and voice, and God's people, powered by grace, ushering in a new, just world order. To listen and hear the word today, we turn the testimonies of people who have defied the cross, betrayal and violence, and who stir us with their fierce devotion to life.
“What are you looking for?” These are the first words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John. It is a good question for us too. What is making you dissatisfied or causing suffering? What will bring you relief? What do you want?
“I do not cease to give thanks for you… that you may know what is the hope to which [God] has called you” (Eph. 1).
14“For it is as if a someone, going on a journey, summoned his stewards and entrusted his property to them;15to one he gave five talents,[f]to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was… opening the scriptures to us” (Lk. 25)?
“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm in the Lord” (Phil. 4).
- Above all Christianity is an orientation towards suffering. And today on Ellen’s last Sunday with us I want to linger a little over a verse from a hymn she wrote. It goes like this: “God incarnate, our true mother / Birthing us to joy and pain / Showing us the steps to dance to / Loving us to life again / Grow us into your true image / As we strive for your love’s reign.”[1]
This time we have shared together has been full of joy and pain. But through all of this God has been teaching us to dance. We have been traveling the way of Jesus together and behold in the twinkling of an eye we have been changed!
Christianity did not begin on Christmas Day. Even the idea of celebrating the birth of our Savior only took hold after a few centuries. No, this way of faith began in a graveyard, at a moment of unbearable pain when a group of women went to wash the body of someone they intensely loved – Jesus. In that moment of shared sadness they were dazzled by God’s presence and joy overtook them.
At the heart of all this is not a belief about what happens when you die, or who God is, or any other belief. At the center is a way of being. You might call it the way of compassion, or being a child of light. Compassion means literally to suffer with. It means not turning your back on the pain all around us. It means being a light to others, keeping vigil, listening both to each other and for the voice of God. Above all in this historical moment of COVID, economic apocalypse, racial despair, gender inequality, violence and threats of disintegration, we are called to really be with each other in the midst of pain.
After the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, our staff began a yearlong anti-racism training course. Last week Jumon who is my age, black, a longterm staff member and a real leader talked with deep emotion in his voice. He said, “I feel like I never had a chance. Everybody knows racism is wrong but nothing is changing. And when I hold my little grandson, I know that he doesn’t have a chance either.” As he spoke I felt my heart breaking. He did nothing wrong and yet from the beginning the world has cursed him, his children and even his children’s children.
Sharing the light of Jesus means being with others in their pain. It also involves knowing that Jesus is with us when we suffer. During the AIDS epidemic when hundreds were dying every week here in this city, Grace Cathedral made it our mission to ensure that no one would die alone. Above all true faith is an orientation towards suffering, it means allowing your heart to be broken and depending completely on God
- I want you to keep this in mind as we listen to the story that Jesus tells this morning. Ayred participates in my Wednesday night Bible class. He’s absolutely new to faith and he always asks “What is the context and significance of this passage.” So let me begin there. There are two contexts that matter in particular for today’s story. One for Jesus and another for Matthew who wrote it.
By this point in his life stories like this may be the only thing keeping Jesus alive. He enters Jerusalem in a huge procession as people wave palm branches and throw their cloaks on the road before him. Then he enters the temple and casts out the people doing business there. Uninvited he takes up residence there healing and teaching. The religious authorities want to have him arrested but they fear the crowds.
Did any of you have outlandish dreams at the beginning of COVID? The wild stories Jesus tells are like that, full of impossible events and crazy, unexpected turns. A king invites dignitaries to a wedding feast, but strangely they make excuses about needing to return to their agron and emporian, their fields and businesses. Others even mistreat and kill the people who bring the invitations. So the king mobilizes the army to kill them and burn their city.
But the lavish meal has already been prepared and so the king invites everyone from the crossroads of daily life, the good and bad together. Since they come right from the marketplace I imagine the king’s servants issuing wedding garments at the door and one man inexplicably refuses. He has come for the lavish meal not to participate in the spirit of the occasion. So the king confronts him and throws him out into the outer darkness.
The context for Matthew helps us understand this story as a kind of allegory. About forty years after the death of Jesus, the Roman Empire utterly crushes an uprising that takes place in the region. As part of an effort to destroy every shred of culture and pride, the Romans destroy the Temple in Jerusalem (where Jesus told this story).
The allegory is simple. God sends prophets like Jesus, Matthew and many others who are ignored or worse yet, persecuted. The Roman army destroys everything. And then the church arises. It is that new cosmic wedding feast of the good and bad of all creation together, celebrating the Son.
But context is not everything. For me, the genius of the parable is that it gives us a world that has it both ways, where two seemingly contradictory truths both hold. On the one hand we are all included in God’s kingdom – the good and the bad together. And yet at the same time Jesus calls us to act, to live in a certain way that is clear and easy to recognize.
Paul calls this putting on Christ. You as well as I know what this looks like. It means living humbly for other people. It involves having a kind of gentleness, so that you can really listen. It means compassion, suffering with our neighbor, caring about the people who have the hardest time in society. This is how we become a light which shows God’s love to the world. These are the qualities that Ellen Clark-King has so thoroughly demonstrated during her four years here.
Ellen certainly isn’t perfect. So why do we all love her so dearly? Let me give you a few examples. Imagine if every newspaper was perfectly designed and tailored for your interests. Imagine if politicians offered an entirely unique message just for you and a totally different one for a farmer in the Central Valley or a coal miner in Pennsylvania. Imagine if dictionary definitions, Wikipedia articles tried to anticipate what you wanted to hear. Obviously this is the world we have begun to enter. What I am describing is the Artificial Intelligence algorithms on Facebook and YouTube that both determine what you see and try to make you watch for longer.
What bothers us about this kind of world is that it lacks integrity. Integrity is related to the word integer, the number one. It means to be the same with whoever you are talking to. Ellen is polite, she always has in mind who she is speaking to (whether it is a working class housecleaner in Newcastle or a Dean of a Cambridge College), but she always has integrity.
The most powerful moment in our interminable discussions about what kind of Cathedral we wanted to be happened during our discussion of the mission statement. The quietest staff person stood up and said that she wanted us to be just like Ellen. She said that Ellen is meek, kind and connects with anyone, but she is a lion who stands up against injustice and unfairness. Ellen is a pioneer in the movement for women’s liberation as one of the first priests ordained by the Church of England. Facing all that opposition has made her very strong indeed.
In her first book Ellen writes, “all human lives have the potential to reveal something of the grace and nature of God and our image of God will remain incomplete unless we attend to such revelations.”[2] Ellen acts like this most of the time.
It would not be an Ellen sermon without some mystics in it. The Desert Fathers and Mothers were radically devoted to the light. Macarius of Egypt (300-391) said that those who are spiritually awake (“Born from on high of the Holy Spirit) “not infrequently weep… for the whole human race… with spiritual love for all humanity. At times also their spirit is kindled with such joy and such love, that if it were possible they would take every human being into their heart without distinguishing the good and the bad… the spirit makes them live afresh in ineffable joy.”[3]
Ellen also has taken us, the good and bad together, into her heart. My point is not just that Ellen is great but that we can be a blessing in exactly the same way. Above all Christianity is an orientation toward suffering.
In my mind’s eye Ellen I will always see you marching through the streets of San Francisco and in procession through this Cathedral. I will picture you writing poems, prayers and hymns, speaking wisdom in meetings and sermons… and in everything you do provoking the smug and comforting the suffering. I shall miss you.
Let us pray: God, incarnate, our true Mother, our hearts are breaking but that is as it should be. Help us not to hold suffering at arm’s length but to allow our hearts to be broken even at the departure of a true friend. We commend to you our sister Ellen. Wherever she travels may the people she encounters see the listener and the lion who we have come to love. Thank you that through her you have shown us the steps to dance to, that in her you have loved us to life again. Amen.
[1] Christ Sophia by Ellen Clark-King
Christ Sophia, Child of Wisdom
Dancing in our deepest dreams
Calling us to love unbounded
Daring us to God’s extremes -
peace and gentleness and justice
Kingdom values, wisdom’s themes.
Brother Jesus, Child of Mary
Walking with us on life’s way
Showing us God’s humble kingdom
Sharing both dark night and day
Breaking through death’s seeming ending
Into new life’s dawning ray.
God incarnate, our true mother,
Birthing us to joy and pain
Showing us the steps to dance to
Loving us to life again
Grow us into your true image
As we strive for your love’s reign.
[2] Ellen Clark-King, Theology By Heart: Women, the Church and God (Werrington, Peterborough, UK: Epworth Press, 2004) 15.
[3] Pseudo-Macarius: “Those who have been judged worthy to become children of God and to be born from on high of the Holy Spirit. . .not infrequently weep and distress themselves for the whole human race; they pray for the ‘whole Adam’ with tears, inflamed as they are with spiritual love for all humanity. At times also their spirit is kindled with such joy and such love that, if it were possible, they would take every human being into their heart without distinguishing between good and bad. Sometimes too in humility of spirit they so humble themselves before every human being that they consider themselves to be the last and least important of all. After which the Spirit makes them live afresh in ineffable joy.” From, Olivier Clement, The Roots of Christian Mysticism. https://witnessestohope.org/category/authors/pseudo-macarius/
Or, Pseudo-Macarius, Homilies.
“At other times, they are in grief and lamentation for all mankind, and interceding for the whole stock of Adam. They take up a wailing and a weeping for it; the love of the Spirit for the human nature kindling and flaming out within them. At other times the joy and love of the Spirit inflames them to that degree, that were it possible, they would snatch up every man into their own bowels, not making the least distinction of the bad from the good. (Homily 10: 7). http://www.seanmultimedia.com/Pie_Macarius_Egyptian_Homilies_6-11.html
Listen to Sunday's sermon by the Director of Senior Ministry and Outreach at Grace Cathedral
From today’s Psalm:
1 I will sing of your steadfast love, My God [O Lord], forever;
with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever;
your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens. AMEN.
Good Morning and Happy Pride Day!
If this were any other Pride Day, this would be the point where we would have hooting and hollering, we’d be cheering with the festiveness this day has come to represent for the community of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, and other sexual minorities, also known as the LGBTQIA+ community. I trust some of you are shouting in your homes, and I know that my heart is filled with memories of Pride Days gone by...especially my first Pride March: the beauty and the spectacle, the empowerment and of course, the music and dancing.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March, the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, held on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising in New York City. And although for all of our well-beings, we are not having Pride Marches, we are indeed witnessing, and some of us participating in various ways, in the ongoing struggle, the ongoing movement for human rights, as people march in the streets across the nation and the world, demanding that black and brown bodies be treated with the dignity and respect that is the right of every person.
And for those who know history, we understand that the demand for equal rights and protection under the law being made today is another manifestation of that demand made in the Village 51 years ago. The Stonewall Inn catered to the most marginalized in the gay community, a description that sounds painfully familiar: people of color, gender non-conforming folks, homeless youth and transgender people, who survived on the streets hustling what they could, even their own bodies. Faced with yet another violent police raid, where the primary transgression was their very existence as LGBTQ persons, the queens rose up, as others before them sat-in, and fought back, leading to three days of rioting, which galvanized and organized LGBT societies into activists. Today we remember and celebrate Marsha P. Johnson, who was part of the Stonewall Riots, an advocate for justice and equal rights, and Sylvia Rivera who together with Marsha established STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) to help homeless young drag queens, gay youth and trans women.
They represent a prophetic move embodying God’s truth, a self-evident truth declared although not yet realized in this nation’s founding documents, that all “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And as Jeremiah attests to, and we ourselves have witnessed, a prophetic word is not welcome when it calls us to account for our transgressions against each other, when it calls out injustice and unfaithfulness to God’s word and will for us. False prophets may declare prosperity and peace, but while God’s children, and especially the least of these, the marginalized and the oppressed, are crushed with reckless disregard for the sanctity of their lives, we will know no peace. No justice, no peace.
For those of us who believe, who know and understand the wisdom and the power of Jesus, who seek to live in a Kin-dom of abundant and everlasting life, where justice and righteousness are the watch words and peace and love are enjoyed, we have our marching orders here in the 10th chapter of Matthew. I invite you to read it to understand the times in which we are living and the call of God to live as faithful disciples, students of the Good News.
In today’s gospel reading we are both encouraged and challenged. Jesus after describing the hard road that awaits those who follow him, encourages them, reminding them that as they seek to speak and practice justice, heal and care for the wounded, be and learn from the marginalized, they will be a blessing and they will be blessed. They will be blessed by those who welcome them, providing hospitality, however basic, even offering them a drink of water, which in the desert is no small thing.
The gospel lists this triad: the prophets, the righteous and the little ones, and they can describe different members of the community, but they also describe the interrelated aspects of our discipleship. One scholar describes them this way: the prophets bring “proclamation and miraculous demonstrations of divine power,” the righteous demonstrate an “enduring pursuit of justice and of the healing and restoration of relationships,” and the little ones, the vulnerable, discounted, devalued, show that this whole enterprise is God’s mission, we are “wholly dependent on God’s power and presence.” (Saunders)
That last group, the little ones, might come as a surprise. We might have expected “the wise ones,” or “the holy ones,” (Saunders) but instead it reflects reality, how God’s mission is lived out in the world: change does not, and never has come from some hero, some eloquent speaker, some person in power. What was true in 1857 is true in 2020, in the words of Frederick Douglass: “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.” Or in the words of June Jordan, “we are the ones we have been waiting for.”
Here lies the encouragement and the challenge. Reading this gospel in today’s context, we are invited to understand that this is about us coming and going. That we are to live into our call to be prophets, speak truth, show miraculous power, what God can do through us; to be righteous and give ourselves to the enduring pursuit of justice and healing; to be the little ones, vulnerable, learning, growing. And that although it will not be easy we will be welcomed and refreshed, those who will minister to us will be blessed as we are blessed by their ministrations.
But we are also invited to understand that we are called to welcome and minister to the prophets, the righteous and the little ones. Those who have felt the movement of the Spirit and are encouraged and bold, demanding their humanity be recognized and accorded the dignity and justice that are their inalienable right as the children of God.
Welcome those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, who seek justice from the systems that are sworn to serve and protect, welcome those involved in the Poor People’s Movement, who seek to unite us across lines of difference as we demand good and just salaries, health care, education, environmental care from institutions created to serve the common good, welcome those who continue the fight for LGBTQ rights, because the right to marry, and now, thank God, the right to work without suffering discrimination, is only the beginning of insuring equal rights.
We are to welcome these prophets, these righteous, these little ones: Not tolerate, and not suspect, or judge, or fear, but welcome, because we who seek to live into God’s will understand that by welcoming these strangers, we may be entertaining angels unaware. (Hebrews 13:2)
In these welcoming and refreshing encounters we, “us and them,” we, will be blessed and we will be a blessing. These relationships will strengthen us, feed us, and help us to grow. Together we will learn to live more fully into God’s call for us, that we would be fully human, humane in our treatment of one another and of all God’s creation, that we might have life and have it more abundantly. (John 10:10).
So today we remember and celebrate those who have gone before us and all those who journey with us in seeking justice. Let us remember and celebrate our call to be righteous and prophetic little ones, relying on the power of God to transform us and through us the world. Let us welcome one another, and keep the feast. May the party begin!
This week’s guest preacher is activist, playwright and actress, Anna Deavere Smith. Known for her incredible work in theatre and film, Anna was the cathedral’s first Artist in Residence in 2012, where she premiered “On Grace”. Former President Barack Obama awarded her the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in 2012, and she has received several awards across the arts and journalism. Her latest work, Notes from the Field, is viewable on YouTube.
Her explorations in contemporary activism and inequality bring a special perspective to Grace. During these past few weeks, the protests have profound — hear from Anna on what to do as we seek to move forward.
If ever there was a festival that speaks to the heart of our current lived experience it was the one we celebrated on Thursday and remember in our readings today. In case you missed it (and it’s pretty easy to miss not having any cards or presents or chocolate attached to it) it was the Feast of the Ascension. The day when we remember Jesus withdrawing his physical presence from his friends and from the world in general. Sound sort of familiar? No more face to face talks, no more sharing of bread and fish with friends, no more wandering through towns and villages. A real withdrawal
There’s a Facebook joke going the rounds that calls the ascension the beginning of Jesus working from home. But that image is I think deeply wrong. Jesus’ home isn’t away from us in heaven – it’s here with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Not in some form of spiritual zoom link but a living divine presence of God that is never socially distanced or unavailable to us. To me the ascension is not about Jesus leaving the world and going home to heaven but about something far theologically richer and stranger. It is about humanity going home to God.
Most of the time our Christian focus is on how Christ transforms us – how God chose to sanctify our bodily reality by becoming flesh like us; how in Jesus we see a new openness of loving, forgiving being; how through death and resurrection Jesus broke chains of violence and death to offer us new life and freedom. But the ascension offers us a new perspective - that it is not only we who are changed by Christ’s loving presence among us. God is also changed. The passionate intimate relationship that Christ formed with humanity works its transformative power both ways – on God as well as on us.
For Christ doesn’t return to God unchanged. Jesus does not shed his bodily existence and leave it behind but takes it with him into the heart of God. All the resurrection stories tell us of Jesus’ continued embodiment – the food he shares on the beach, the scars that Thomas hardly dares to touch. His body is part of who he is. It is not abandoned and left behind but transformed to become part of who God is.
So as a result of the ascension, right at the heart of God, is our humanity. Right at the heart of who God is there is the experience of death, of suffering, of laughter, of embracing friends, of loneliness, of sleepless nights, of shared jokes around a table, of tears, of regret, and of hope. All the chaotic loveliness and pain of human life is not shrugged off and discarded but brought into the heart of God’s being. God is different because God became human and never left that humanity behind.
In fact, the ascension is the first step in the completion of what began with the incarnation. God became human to show us how to be human and to show us the invincible strength of God’s love for us. But there is more, wonderfully more! God became human to make us one with God. As Jesus says slightly later in this chapter of John’s gospel: ‘As you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ This is our eternal destiny, to be not only saved but to become one with the God who saved us.
This is pretty mind blowing. Really, think about it. You who, like me, have failed at so many things. You who, like me, have snapped at your partners or children or friends. You who, like me, have stood to one side while we see others suffer. We are the ones God chooses to bring into the divine being, who God chooses as dance partners for the music of eternity. For those of us sick of seeing our own face gazing back at us from our computer screens, remember how beloved that face is to God.
The second step in the completion of the incarnation is the one we celebrate next week – Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. As I said, this is not some spiritual zoom connection to make up for the fact that we can no longer meet Jesus face to face. The Holy Spirit is the transformed life of God in the heart of all that is. The Holy Spirit is the point of connection that holds us together as a community of faith even when we are physically separate. The Holy Spirit’s presence in, between and around us means that God is still in the heart of our human experience, just as our human experience is in the heart of God.
The ascension can easily feel like a festival of withdrawal, of absence. Of God finished with the incarnation returning to the state God was before – more remote from this world, more detached from our concerns, more absent than present. A God choosing to work from home. But this is actually the reverse of what is happening. God is allowing our experience into the heart of who God is, God is welcoming humanity into the dance of divinity, God is receiving us in Christ and allowing Godself to change. God is letting the loving, intimate relationship established in Christ transform divinity as well as humanity.
As we look to a God who allowed us into the very heart of who God is, allow that same God into the very heart of who you are. Know your value, your infinite worth. Know your connection to all those God loves. Know your connection to the divine dance of life. Allow yourself to rest this week safe in those sheltering arms. Allow yourself to dance this week as if only God is watching. Allow yourself to be this week who you truly are – a sibling of Christ, a child of the divine, a holy temple of the Holy Spirit.
And know that if Christ is working from home it is because Christ is here working in us, dwelling with us whose humanity ascended with him to heaven.
“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you…” (1 Peter 3).
“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you…” (1 Peter 3).
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20).
At the age of eighteen, when I first lived on my own at U.C. Berkeley, I had all my classes in the same vast lecture hall and the room across the corridor from it. I have vivid memories of sitting on the benches by Strawberry Creek among the sycamore trees, outside Dwinelle Plaza, listening to a folk singer dressed all in white.
His name was Julian. He had long flowing hair and was only a little older than me. He often sang a song by Neil Young called “Sugar Mountain.” “Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain / With the barkers and the colored balloons, / You can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain / Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon, / You’re leaving there too soon.”[1]
“It’s so noisy at the fair / But all your friends are there / And the candy floss you had / And your mother and your dad. // Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain…”
At those moments, with such exquisite intensity, I missed my mom, my dad and my brother, and all those county fair moments of my other life. Something inside me resisted growing up and yet I knew I had to.
Many forms of Christianity emphasize a dramatic conversion experience above all else. In some churches you might even feel pressured to think that someone can’t be a Christian without a singular, defining mystical experience, without being “born again” in this way. The idea that a particularly moment might change everything certainly has a role in our tradition.
But I believe our form of faith focuses more on slow, steady progress over long periods of time. Coming to church, singing hymns, praying, trying to change how we treat people around us every day, working for a more just society – these actions ultimately shape our inner landscape so that we begin to respond to the world in a new way. Faith is this process of growing up. Luke describes it as, “knowing the ways of life” (Acts 2). John calls it having life in Jesus’ name (Jn. 20). Paul writes that, “all will be made alive in Christ” (1 Cor. 15:22).
Growing up can be painful. But Jesus promises that we can embrace change with equanimity, with a kind of deep, centered peace. This morning I want to study what it looks like to grow in faith. I’m using the Puritan sermon structure with a section each on the text, doctrine and application.
- Text. Each reference to Jesus’ resurrection seems so unique and yet there are familiar patterns. For instance in the Gospels of John and Luke, Jesus’ closest friends have difficulty recognizing him. After the Roman Empire executes Jesus as an enemy, the disciples feel so disabled by fear that they will only gather behind locked doors.
Fear and surprise make Jesus invisible to his friends. They can only rejoice after seeing his wounds. He says, “peace be with you.” He breathes the Holy Spirit into them.[2] He teaches them that they can forgive the sins of others. But Thomas was not there and he feels shattered when his friends tell him that they, “have seen the Lord” (Jn. 20).
I don’t think of Thomas as primarily a doubter. He just wants to experience what the others saw. Perhaps he feels alone or guilty for abandoning Jesus or missing the meeting. But even in bitter despair Thomas keeps showing up to be with his friends.
In English a double negative (like “ain’t no”) is bad grammar but in in Greek it adds emphasis. Thomas does this when he says that unless he sees Jesus’ wounds, “I will [absolutely] not believe.” A more literal translation of Jesus response would not use the word “doubt” but would be “do not be disbelieving but believe,” or, as my friend Herman Waetjen translates it, “do not be faith-less but faith-full.[3]”
Jesus is not against doubt. The theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965) is right to point out that doubt is not opposed to belief but an element in it.[4] Jesus is talking about the kind of believing that involves a trusting relationship with God.
Thomas feels full of such awe and joy that he uses the same expression that Romans used for Emperor Domitian (51-96 CE). He exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus says, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe.” And John writes that his book’s purpose is that through believing that, “Jesus is the Messiah… you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20).
My point is not that Thomas failed to grow in faith. His experience shows us that there is far more to faith than believing that a certain event, like the resurrection, happened in the past. There is indeed a believing that comes from seeing. But there is also a way of looking forward and seeing a transformed future because of what we believe. We see to believe. But we also believe in order to see. This is the advanced course, the deeper insight into reality that Jesus helps us to realize.
- Doctrine. My next question has to do with doctrine. What is faith and why do we need it? The answer has to do with what Christians call sin. The twentieth century theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) writes that each person has a unique moral code. Almost inevitably this collection of rules about how the world should be is biased in our favor and we go about trying to impose it on everyone else.
Barth also believes that most of the time we live by the delusion that we can help our self. Our ego craves security, power, the admiration of others. And so we rush, grasping for things, “striving and fighting.” But every success is hollow, everything we get turns out to be only a symbol for the real thing that we will never win on our own.[5] Christians have this idea of original sin. For me it means that there never was and never will be a golden age. There is something in us as human beings that drives us toward chaos.
And yet through Jesus a kind of peace is possible. To friends who had just betrayed him this peace says that whatever separated us before is in the past. This peace is the inner freedom that belongs only to someone who seeks and accepts help from God. It is the peace that is more than absence of conflict. It is the peace we experience when we move beyond the question of what happened in the past and into an exploration of what faith in God might mean for the future.
That’s what the disciples did. Through believing in Jesus they went from expecting the enemy and hiding in fear, to being witnesses of God who changed the world. Faith isn’t just an idea of what is real, it is a way of living, of encountering each other with an openness to being helped by God. Religion is less like a form of knowledge and more like a longing for closeness with the origin of all things. Faith is simply wanting what God wants for the world.
- Application. My last section concerns the danger of a certain kind of disbelieving. Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It happened on Wednesday of Easter week. You can imagine a few days earlier the fanfare at the largest, grandest church in the city on Easter Sunday. Little did they know that day, the hundreds of our predecessors at Grace Church, that they would never step foot in that magnificent church again.[6]
In our time we think of it as a devastating earthquake. But the shaking lasted for only a minute while the subsequent fire raged for three days and did far more damage. Three thousand people died, 28,000 structures were destroyed. Half of the city was homeless – over a hundred thousand people were forced to camp out. Five square miles were completely obliterated making it the greatest urban fire in history before the aerial warfare of World War II.
As a young priest I remember hearing stories from survivors. One woman told me that this time camping in Golden Gate Park included some of the happiest days of her long life. People rescued and cared for each other. Money or social station didn’t matter as much anymore. Everyone helped in whatever way they could.
In fact, the natural disaster was not nearly as catastrophic as the human disaster. Rebecca Solnit writes that Frederick Funston the commanding officer of the Presidio simply took over the city. His lack of faith in ordinary citizens meant that his men shot people for trying to help in the catastrophe. Out of fears of looting, that never really materialized, they kept away citizens who could have stopped the fires.[7] In short this was a terrible spiritual failure. The leaders cared more about protecting the property of the few than about what the community might accomplish together.
As a nation we are in the midst of another terrible crisis of faith. At anti-government protests in Lansing Michigan, Huntington Beach, California, Austin, Texas and elsewhere we are seeing people taking to the streets because they do not trust the scientists, civic leaders and government officials who are trying to protect them from COVID19.[8] In our case growing spiritually means becoming wiser about what we disbelieve. But it also means caring about what God loves and not squandering this opportunity to build a more equal and just society. We were made for this.[9]
I remember the last Sunday before the Cathedral had to close. It was the first time we knew that we shouldn’t touch each other but before we realized that we couldn’t gather together at all anymore. That day a visiting family sat in the first row. We looked each other in the eyes as we passed the peace. I realized that when I say “the peace of the Lord be with you,” it means, “I want what is good for you and I believe that God does too.” That is what faith means.
Every disaster is different. Unlike the earthquake and fire of 1906 the structures of inequality and the walls that separate us from each other are growing. We know that when life begins to return to normal, we will not return to the same jobs, schools and favorite places. They will have changed and we will have changed too.
At eighteen I understood that we all have to grow up, in our life and in our faith. But we do not decide what to believe on our own. God offers us help. Jesus cannot be prevented by any locked door from calling us to a deep centered peace that passes all understanding. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe. May the peace of the Lord be always with you.
[1] “Now you say you’re leaving home / ‘Cause you want to be alone. / Ain’t it funny how you feel / When you’re finding out it’s real.” “Sugar Mountain,” Track 6, Side 2, Decade, Warner Bros., 28 October 1977, Neil Young. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/neilyoung/sugarmountain.html
[2] This is the only time that the New Testament uses this word which describes how Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on to his disciples.
[3] “Bring your finger here and see my hands and bring your hand and cast it into my side and do not keep on being faith-less but faith-full” (Jn. 20:27). Herman Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple: A Work in Two Editions (NY: T&T Clark, 2005) 423.
[4] “Why not take the risk of historical uncertainty as well? The affirmation that Jesus is the Christ is an act of faith and consequently of daring courage. It is not an arbitrary leap into darkness but a decision in which elements of immediate participation and therefore certitude are mixed with elements of strangeness and therefor incertitude and doubt. But doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. Therefore, there is no faith without risk. The risk of faith is that it could affirm a wrong symbol of ultimate concern, a symbol which does not really express ultimacy…” Pau Tillich, Systematic Theology, Volume Two, Existence and Christ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1957) 116.
[5] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV:1 The Doctrine of Reconciliation, tr. G.W. Bromiley (NY: T&T Clark, 2004) 446, 460.
[6] Our former church stands on the site of the Ritz Carlton Hotel down the California Street hill from us. Photographs of its burnt-out tower became a symbol of terrible destruction.
[7] Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster (NY: Viking, 2009) 35ff.
[8] Pastors in the Central Valley love their story of being persecuted for their faith so deeply that they are suing the same government officials who are so successfully limiting the spread of coronavirus through social distancing rules.
[9] Some years ago Israeli archaeologists made an extraordinary discovery. They found an untouched burial cave of a family who survived the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Among the pottery and household objects, they found two amulets, little silver scrolls that had been unopened for 2600 years. With great gentleness they unrolled them and found the oldest parchment of any sacred scripture now in existence. On the scrolls was written, “May God bless you and keep you. May God cause His countenance to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May God turn his countenance to you and grant you peace.” David J. Wolpe, Why Faith Matters (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2008) 194.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus… who emptied himself…” (Phil. 2).
- Death grips us. In these COVID19 days something within us is passing away. The former world with its sureties and distractions suddenly has dissolved and we are left to face ultimate reality. I read Albert Camus’ book The Plague because I wanted to see more deeply into what is happening, to understand how we might be saved.
Camus published The Plague in 1947. He started writing it while he lived in an apartment with in-laws whom he despised in the Algerian town of Orans. Suffering from tuberculosis he wandered the streets with terrible, disorienting attacks of fever. He ended up leaving the city and crossing the Mediterranean Sea to recover in the French Alps. But during this time the Allied armies retook North Africa and the borders were closed. Camus missed the last boat and found himself stranded, separated from his beloved wife Francine and, trying to find a way to be useful to the resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris.[1]
So the plague is a way for Camus to write about a painful war and separation from loved ones. He points out that we are surprised by plagues and wars despite how often they recur in history.[2] We simply don’t want to believe what is happening to us and so government officials refuse to face the magnitude of the problem and offer lying reassurances that ultimately make everything far worse.
Camus writes about quarantine as the military seals off the city and train service stops. He writes about auxiliary hospitals in former schools and the medical system being overrun, about patients being separated from their families by police and then dying alone. Funerals happen with maximum speed and minimum risk. At first the dead are treated like individuals but before long the bodies are merely slid into quicklime pits and then finally a street car line is dedicated to transporting bodies to a crematorium.
Most of all Camus writes about the inner lives of people experiencing appalling events. He writes “great misfortunes are monotonous” (169) and explains how we become desensitized, chronically cynical and isolated from each other (165). The plague killed the ability to love or even to have friendships (171). The most hopeful element of the novel concerns a community of volunteers who take risks and try to alleviate suffering even when everything seems hopeless.
Still there are moments of beauty in the terror. Two friends experience transcendence swimming in the harbor at night and are possessed by, “a strange happiness… that forgot nothing not even murder” (239). At the end of the plague the survivors see the smoke from the first train to visit the city. It comes into the station platform and the feeling of exile vanishes, “before an uprush of overpowering, bewildering joy” (274). One man’s wife has jumped into his arms before he can really see that it is her. “He let his tears flow freely, unknowing if they rose from present joy or from sorrow too long repressed… For the moment he wished to behave like the others… who believed, or made believe, that plague can come and go without changing anything in men’s hearts” (274).
The point that Camus makes over and over is that nothing can really take away the pain that everyone suffered or undo its damage. They may be able to experience joy, but it is always mixed up in that misery. And this makes it like the Palm Sunday story.
- On this day Palm and Passion Sunday we both celebrate the fanfare of Jesus’ triumphant arrival in Jerusalem and observe the horror of his betrayal, isolation, humiliation, trial, torture and death. What Jesus suffers changes our story of what it means to be human, what we are created to strive for. God calls to us especially during this time when so many meanings are changing.
Matthew refers to prophecies in the Books of Zechariah and Isaiah about the arrival of a conquering king whose “dominion shall be from sea to sea” (Zech. 9).[3] Crowds cut palm branches, and lay cloaks on the ground. They shout, “Hosanna in the highest.” Matthew puts before us a symbol that we still recognize today – the arrival of victorious armies. Think of Roman Emperors, the Arc de Triomphe, Hitler’s arrival in Paris, or the lines of tanks and missile launchers parading through the streets of communist Moscow or today in Pyongyang.
“The whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”” (Mt. 21). And Matthew answers this question by completely changing the meaning of victory, kingship, and what we should do with our lives. Jesus teaches that the goal of our existence is not to be safe, or feared, or to have power over others, but to serve them.
Paul writes about how he came to experience Jesus alive in himself, how his whole system of values was overturned. In a letter to friends in the church of Philippi he writes, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form a slave… he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even on a cross” (Phil. 2). This may be one of the most important verses in all scripture but it is more abstract and theoretical than Matthew’s story of how Jesus is betrayed and tortured.
- So much in the world has a different meaning to us now. Grocery stores and restaurants used to seem like safe places, people crossing the street to avoid being on the same sidewalk used to be rude, visiting senior citizens used to be compassionate. Now staying home and covering our faces is responsible. An aircraft carrier in the most advanced navy in history used to be a symbol of military dominance but has instead become an emblem of danger, confinement and terror. The captain ready to do anything for the sake of his crew and powerful governors, who publicly beg for medical equipment, have become heroes.
The body means something different to us now. Our own bodies feel more vulnerable and isolated. They consume vastly more of our attention. In this city we see bodies lined up outside stores around the block in the rain to shop for food or be tested for COVID19. We feel the absence of others’ bodies acutely. In the news we see bodies stacked up in Italian churches, refrigerator trucks and makeshift morgues. Every two and a half minutes another person in New York dies as fear grabs the city by the throat.
And with all of this our stories are changing, stories about poor people, what the economy is for, our political identities and what really matters. These stories have life and death consequences. For instance the story that COVID19 was just another way that liberals were trying to discredit the president, the myth that the disease was only a problem for faraway people, even the idea that reality is a made up of competing peoples rather than a single interdependent, interconnected human family – these stories are causing terrible suffering. There is an awful, demonic kind of pride in the destructive story that religious people are entitled to gather large groups of people because what they do is so important.
- We only partially choose the stories that give us meaning. In many ways eventyally reality forces itself on us. When we open ourselves in prayer, God comes and changes the story of our life. This happened to the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881).
In 1849 he and other revolutionaries were dressed in their funeral clothes and marched out to be shot. The firing squad took their positions, the drums beat and at the last second a messenger arrived on horseback with the news that the Czar had pardoned them. This moment changed everything forever. Suddenly Dostoyevsky could see the truth. Within days he wrote a letter telling his brother how much he loved him. He felt determined to no longer get mired in little insecurities and pettiness.
Dostoyevsky writes, “Never has there seethed in me such an abundant and healthy kind of spiritual life as now… I shall be born again in a new form… Life is a gift. Life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness…”[4] And this changed him. It was the beginning of a radically different life in which he tried to empty himself as Christ did.
In another context the contemporary poet Christian Wiman writes, “Religion is not made of these moments, religion is the means of making these moments part of your life rather than merely radical intrusions so foreign and perhaps even so fearsome that you can’t acknowledge their existence afterward. Religion is what you do with these moments of over-mastery in your life.”[5]
In these days when the structures for meaning are most fluid Jesus shows us what it means to live in the knowledge of God’s love for us. This humility, this submission to God, looks different for every person. For me it is a sense of connection to a transcendence and beauty that seems almost always to be available when I am able through prayer to move beyond the dramas of my ego.
This week a friend sent me a poem by Wendell Berry about this experience that continues to recur in my life. It is called “The Peace of Wild Things.”
“When despair for the world grows in me / and I wake in the night at the least sound / in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, / I go and lie down where the wood drake / rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds, / I come into the peace of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief. I come into the presence of still water. / And I feel above me the day-blind stars / waiting with their light. For a time / I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”[6]
Death grips us, but we are still free. Christian Wiman writes, “There is no way to return to the faith of your childhood… for faith in God, is in the deepest sense faith in life.”[7] Something within us is passing away, but God still abides. The plague has arrived but you are God’s child, and life is still a gift. May the triumph, the blessing, the self-emptying and the resurrection of Christ be yours today in the grace of this world and always.
[1] I benefited from listening to Alice Kaplan’s Yale University course “The Modern French Novel,” on 2 April 2020 with Camus translator Laura Marris as a guest.
[2] “Everyone knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise… When a war breaks out, people say, “It’s stupid; it can’t last long.” But through a war may well be “too stupid,” that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.” Albert Camus, The Plague, tr. Stuart Gilbert (NY: Vintage Books, 1972) 35-6.
[3] “Lo your king comes… triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey… his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Zech. 9).
[4] David Brooks, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (NY: Random House, 2019) 50-51.
[5] Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) 70.
[6] Wendell Berry, Collected Poems 1957-1982 (San Francisco: Northpoint Press, 1984) 69.
[7] Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) 7.