We Don't Want to Talk about Kings (So Let's Talk about Kings)
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
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:...
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What to do in the Face of Hopelessness
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
“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 |...
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Requiem for a Dying Church
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
“[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
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Kamala Harris Cannot Save You
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
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). 1. 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...
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The Rt. Rev. William Swing
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 25 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco October 27, 2024
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The Rev. Dr. Timothy Seamans
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
Job 38:1-7, 34-41 Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10: 35-45
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Truth Hurts … and Heals
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
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.
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How to Think about Divorce
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
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...
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The Very Rev. Debbie Thomas
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
Genesis 28:10-17 Revelation 12:7-12 John 1:47-51
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The Very Rev. Debbie Thomas
Sermons from Grace Cathedral
Genesis 28:10-17 Revelation 12:7-12 John 1:47-51
info_outline“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
1. 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.