Sermons from Grace Cathedral

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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 o...

The Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi

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 ...

The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene

21 July 2024 2 Sameul 7:1-14a Ephesians 2:11-22 Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The Rev. Joe C. Williams

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 Ephesians 1:3-14 Mark 6:14-29

Questions, Curiosity and Hope

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 li...

The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene

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.

The Rev. Joe C. Williams

1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 10-16 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 Mark 4:35-41

The World is Satan's Home

“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

Pride Mass

The Rev. Miguel Bustos Manager for Racial Reconciliation and Justice, The Episcopal Church

Through the Sabbath into a Strange New World

“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 deli...

The Rev. Canon Anne E. Rossi

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 ...

The Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi

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 ar...

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

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 1. “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...

The Rev. Mark E. Stanger

Acts 10:44-48 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

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." 1. 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 ye...

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

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 gen...

The Rev. Jim Wallis

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

The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene

Acts 4:323-35 1 John 1:1-2:2 John 20:19-31

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Marc Handley Andrus

Acts 10:34-43 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Mark 16:1-8

The Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi

Exodus 12:1-14 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-17, 31b-35

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Marc Handley Andrus

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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 peo...

The Rev. Joe C. WIlliams

Numbers 21:4-9 Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21

The Fury of Jesus

Exodus 20:1-17 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 John 2:13-22

The Only Act Worthy of You

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 ...

Invitation to See

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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...

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Marc Handley Andrus

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

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

The Very Re. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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