Grace Cathedral
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Psalm 67; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28
There’s a familiar phrase in today’s reading from Isaiah: “a house of prayer for all people.” For many of us, this is a closely held value about what Grace Cathedral is, and what it aspires to be. We hope and strive for this to be a place of radical hospitality — where a warm welcome is offered equally to all, stranger and friend. Some days, that striving has its challenges.
A woman stands outside the circle where Jesus and his friends are talking. I love her audacity, and her willingness to be loud in pursuit of what she most wants — healing for her daughter. The world around her has defined her as unchosen, unclean, powerless and disruptive, but that has not silenced her. Her love is strong enough to stop Jesus in his tracks, as he prepares to give her another “no.” She speaks the truth of her heart, and his understanding of his calling is enlarged.
When the Gospel invites us to witness this “aha” moment, it suggests that we need not be ashamed of our own need to stop, look and listen, and to expand our understanding of whom we call family and how we make others feel welcome. I hope that I can learn to listen better for that woman’s shout. I hope that I can learn to shout that much louder when love needs a voice.
Carol James has been part of the cathedral community for over a decade. She has served as a co-mentor in the Education for Ministry program. She currently leads the evening prayer providers in our Jail Ministry and is a cathedral staff member.
1 Kings 19:9-18; Psalm 85:8-13; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33
What does it take to hear the sheer silence of God?
As I write this, there’s a dull throb of construction machinery outside my window. Colleagues drift in with questions, news, jokes. When I check social media at the end of the day, I’ll be immersed in a stream of stories, my heart tugged by the poignant and the outraged, the mundane and the extraordinary. God speaks through all I encounter – but am I hearing the intimate message that God offers in more hushed tones? Am I hearing the word that’s near to me?
I’m coming to understand how much my faith grows in quiet – not the quiet of formal meditation or mindfulness, as valuable as those practices are. Carving out time to “do nothing” is a counter-cultural undertaking, and I’m fighting my own expectations as well as pressures from the world when I embark on it. Paul asks us to look at what is stirring within our hearts, as it is the place from where our words and actions will arise. Without experiencing this stirring fully and intentionally, it’s hard to sustain the courage to move through a world in conflict.
Arising from his own time of quiet prayer in the mountains, Jesus moves over troubled waters so luminously that his friends imagine he is a ghost. His invitation and his supporting hand stretch out through time and space, to each of us, wherever we are.
Carol James has been part of the cathedral community for over a decade. She has served as a co-mentor in the Education for Ministry program. She currently leads the evening prayer providers in our Jail Ministry and is a cathedral staff member.
Isaiah 55:10-13; Psalm 65:(1-8), 9-14; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Our readings today contain many images of the chances and challenges of growth. Each seed spread out into the world has the potential to unfold and expand, to flourish and to nourish others in its turn. A well-tended harvest may yield a hundred times what was planted.
Yet it takes so little to thwart growth. A poorly chosen site, badly prepared soil, the whims of weather or an indifferent caretaker can stunt, disfigure or annihilate a young plant. It can be discouraging to reckon up the number of obstacles that impose themselves between the promise and the performance of new life.
Why struggle to grow and to tend growth when the odds seem so greatly stacked against us? Is this what Paul is warning us about, as he compares the mind set on the flesh and the mind set on the Spirit? Do we sometimes choose the voice of limits, the voice of an understanding of the world unleavened by hope?
There’s another voice that promises abundance and expansion. It invites us to wonder at and bless the seeds sown in us, and the seeds we sow. It won’t keep the birds off or pull up the weeds – that’s our job. But oh, what a lovely garden we might grow.
Carol James has been part of the cathedral community for over a decade. She has served as a co-mentor in the Education for Ministry program. She currently leads the evening prayer providers in our Jail Ministry and is a cathedral staff member.
The featured image is of St. James’/Iglesia de Santiago, Alameda from “Looking Forward/Looking Back: Thirty Churches of the Episcopal Diocese of California” by Bill Van Loo.
Ahmad and Mona sit in the back of a car moving through a nondescript landscape.
“I always said I’d take you to France,” Ahmad says.
“And I said Syria was good enough for me.” Mona replies.
His smile contains a twinkle of mischief. “But still, I got you to France.”
Mona laughs as their fingers interlace.
– From “On the Bride’s Side,” screening Sunday, July 16 in Wilsey.
We’re sharing a moment of Ahmad and Mona’s journey together – the journey of a long marriage, the journey of a shared life in political activism, and right now, the journey to safe asylum in a new land, full of both fear and promise. It’s a journey with high stakes, and we’re privileged to witness it.
Our summer social justice film series invites us into stories of people like Ahmad and Mona, struggling with hope and humor towards a life that offers dignity, opportunity and justice for all. We’ll walk with grieving mothers, drag queens, journalists, NRA members, historians and bartenders as we seek to understand how our own stories braid into the struggle for justice, and where we might be called to action.
Four gifted filmmakers have given us unique perspectives on the challenges of our times, and the people who are most immediately impacted by them. We hope that these stories – harrowing, surprising, full of persistence and heartbreak – will invite you deeper into your own journey, reminding you how many wonderful people are traveling with you – as well as how far we have to go.
Our readings this Sunday tackle some uncomfortable aspects of our journey to and with God. We’re asked to stay faithful in the face of conflict, opposition and persecution. Responding to God’s call and following Jesus’s path can hold joy, the unleashing of possibility and a deeper experience of love than we might ever have dared to name as our desire. It can also include stretches of pain, rupture of relationships and risk to what’s comfortable in our lives. What keeps us true and courageous during these darker stages of the journey?
Jeremiah describes his bones burning within him when he tries to stifle his response to God’s call. Paul reminds us that our baptism must begin with Jesus’s death, to fully partake in the life of glory and liberation beyond. Jesus himself shares the unwelcome news that Love’s call to Justice can set off discord and conflict as surely as a war chant. He still asks us to tell the full truth, “in the light… proclaim[ed] from the housetops.” He knows that our bones will burn within us if we do any less.
“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.” This quote from the Gospel of Thomas speaks to us now as loudly as it did nearly two thousand years ago. What must you say to be God’s voice in the world?
Carol James has been part of the cathedral community for over a decade. She has served as a co-mentor in the Education for Ministry program. She currently leads the evening prayer providers in our Jail Ministry and is a cathedral staff member.
We’ve shared dazzling and surprising stories in our most recent Sunday readings: we’ve stood slack-jawed on a sun-bleached hillside as our teacher and friend ascended into heaven; standing in crowded markets and worship places, we’ve listened as Peter, Paul, and other newly minted leaders have stepped forward and sought to engage their neighbors in a bold and life-giving relationship with God; we’ve been promised a comforter and an advocate, and received roaring winds and tongues of flame. Why do we now turn our attention to the Trinity?
As we navigate so many changes in our world and in ourselves, it’s important to remember that God has a limitless array of ways to reach us, to work with us and within us. I like to think of the Trinity as God’s promise to turn a different face close to us, to meet our need and our yearning wherever we are. God can be the creator of diversity and abundance, larger than our ability to perceive. God can be a dusty companion on the road, jostling along beside us in the streets of the city. God can be a small persistent voice that won’t be silenced during a long and sleepless night.
And we give back to God, through each other, in as many different ways – a poem, a difficult but necessary conversation, a shared meal, an accompanying walk through an unfriendly crowd. To be united is not to be uniform. God beyond us, God beside us, God within us, what is the Trinity saying to you?
There’s an immediate connection and sense of being welcomed when someone speaks your own language to you when you’re far from home. The Spirit, in our readings today, seeks us where we are and as we are—using that jolt of unexpected hospitality to call forth and celebrate our array of slumbering gifts.
That’s a wonderful thing to contemplate, as we welcome the families of our baptisands today. We don’t know what dreams and visions your daughters and sons will prophesy in the years ahead, but we know that resting within them are the seeds of so many amazing things. God will invite them to both inhabit their full selves and to step beyond the limits of their selves; the invitation will be both fiery and tender.
For the Spirit’s gift is a roar of wind to propel us out of categories and labels, past boundaries and isolation, into a community dedicated to life, that welcomes and nourishes the gifts we can give each other. Each of us, in our own particularity, is vital to the flourishing of the whole. Let us look for that powerful and loving invitation each day, and respond to it gladly in our own tongues.
Acts 1:6-14, 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11, John 17:1-11
How long might the apostles have stood on that hillside, staring up at the clouds, had not the white-robed ones nudged them into action? Experiencing the unfiltered glory and mystery of God seems to have overwhelmed them and left them grasping for an appropriate response. Our reading from the Gospel of John foreshadows this moment, when Jesus prays for glorification to bind together God and the people of God in ways that we’re still struggling to live out.
According to one dictionary definition, to glorify is “to cause to be or to treat as being more splendid, excellent, etc. than would normally be considered.” Are these readings asking us to cast aside “normal consideration”—to focus instead the light and gift of our full attention on all that God gives us, whether delightful, unpleasant, painful or strange? Can our whole lives be a magnifying glass that brings into greater clarity and precision God’s invitation to abundant life for all?
What happens when we come down from the hillside, shaking our heads over the wonders we’ve seen? Can we find signs of hope, and of God’s loving companionship among the anxieties and frustration of our daily lives? What gifts of vision will meet us when we set out to look for splendor wherever we go? And what work will these visions call us to do?
Carol James has been part of the cathedral community for over a decade. She has served as a co-mentor in the Education for Ministry program. She currently leads the evening prayer providers in our Jail Ministry and is a cathedral staff member.