Sermons from Grace Cathedral

The Rev. Canon J. Sierra Reyes

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

Going Toward the Fire: Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire

Isaiah 43:1-7 Psalm 29 Acts 8:14-17 Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 1. 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 Literatur...

The Second Sunday after Christmas

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

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

The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene

AI, Christmas and Transcendence

“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 ...

The Eve of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

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

O Little Town...

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 whee...

Meeting Notre Dame

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)

Getting Ready for a Joyful Reunion

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

Living in the Crawl Space

“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...

Unambiguously, unhurriedly Here

Advent 1 2024 The Rev. Cn. MC Greene 8:30 AM and 11:00 service

We Don't Want to Talk about Kings (So Let's Talk about Kings)

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...

What to do in the Face of Hopelessness

“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

Requiem for a Dying Church

“[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

Kamala Harris Cannot Save You

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 agai...

The Rt. Rev. William Swing

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 25 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco October 27, 2024

The Rev. Dr. Timothy Seamans

Job 38:1-7, 34-41 Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10: 35-45

Truth Hurts … and Heals

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.

How to Think about Divorce

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 h...

The Very Rev. Debbie Thomas

Genesis 28:10-17 Revelation 12:7-12 John 1:47-51

Making Greatness Great Again - Debie Thomas, Author

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 ...

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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?

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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 tw...

The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Greene

Song of Solomon 2:8-13 James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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 difficul...

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“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

The Rev. Joe C. Williams

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 Ephesians 5:15-20 John 6:51-58

The Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios

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 r...

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

“[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 what...