Grace Cathedral

Grace Cathedral

“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?”

The mother of my friend Margaret Miles used to tell her that it was important to have a spiritual life so that she would not just be at the mercy of “whatever happens” but live in a way that is, “examined, cultivated and intentional.”1 Faith is how we shape our inner landscape and direct our action, especially in the face of fear.2

Two weeks before Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) became chancellor of Germany, the pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) preached at a vesper service in Berlin. The power of extremist groups was increasing. Ordinary people were in danger from thugs fighting in the streets. The government and their world were being shattered. This is what Bonhoeffer preached.

“The overcoming of fear – that is what we are proclaiming here. The Bible, the gospel, Christ, the church, the faith – all are one great battle cry against fear in the lives of human beings. Fear is… the archenemy itself. It crouches in people’s hearts. It hollows out their insides, until their resistance and strength are spent and they suddenly break down. Fear secretly gnaws and eats away at all the ties that bind a person to God and to others, and when in a time of need that person reaches for those ties and clings to them, they break and the individual sinks back into himself or herself, helpless and despairing, while hell rejoices.” Bonhoeffer goes on. Fear says, “Here we are all by ourselves, you and I, now I’m showing you my true face. And anyone who has seen naked fear revealed, who has been its victim in terrifying loneliness – fear of an important decision; fear of a heavy stroke of fate, losing one’s job, an illness; fear of disgrace; fear of another person; fear of dying – that person knows that fear is… one of the faces of evil itself… Nothing can make a human being so conscious of the reality of powers opposed to God in our lives as this

loneliness, this helplessness, this fog spreading over everything, this sense that there is no way out… of this hell of hopelessness.”3

1. Today let us consider what fear means in an examined life first from the Gospel of Luke and then from the social scientist Brené Brown.4 In the Gospel of Luke Jesus has been preaching in the synagogue and healing people including Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus tries to find time alone to pray but the crowds inevitably find him. At the lake of Genessaret the people thirst so much for the word of God that he has to get into Peter’s boat in order to teach them. After this Jesus says, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch” (Lk. 5).

Peter tells him, “Boss we toiled (kopiaō) all night and caught nothing.” But they did what Jesus said and the nets were breaking because of the abundance of fish. Peter is not just amazed, the Greek word thambos means fear too. “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man.” And Jesus replies, “from now on you will be catching people.”

I have two major problems with this translation. First, Jesus does not say “deep water” just depth. The word is bathos and related to our word bathysphere, or small submarine. William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience includes the account of a woman who recovered from a “nervous breakdown” which took her to “the verge of insanity.”

What saved her was, “learning the fact that we must be in absolutely constant relation or mental touch… with that essence of life which permeates all and which we call God. This is almost unrecognizable unless we live it into ourselves actually, that is, by constant turning to the very innermost, deepest consciousness of our real selves or of God in us, for illumination from within, just as we turn to the sun for light, warmth, and invigoration from without.”5 At the center of our being we meet God. But we will never have this experience if we are not people of depth, prayer and reflection.

My second problem with this translation is the word zōgreō. This is not just about “catching people.” It means to bring someone back alive (like the old western “wanted dead or alive” posters). It is linguistically related to zoē which means life and is related to our word zoology.

This is a subtle point. Peter recoils because of a visceral sense of shame and inadequacy. Jesus does not punish him. Jesus also does not forgive him. Instead Jesus shows him his real purpose in life. His purpose, like ours, is to help others find their way. We are here to let down our nets to be connected to others so that they can really live.

As a child I attended my grandfather’s church. Not long after he retired he had a terrible stroke. We moved to California not long after that and I never saw him alive again. All I have from him is his Bible, a Greek dictionary and seven of his sermons. In one he quotes Phillips Brooks who says the reason we are here is, “that something more of God may become evident and effective in the world. Not what you can do but what God can do in you. Not what you are, but how you can help [people] see what [God] is.”6

2. As a faithful Episcopalian Brené Brown does extraordinary ministry. She serves as a research scientist developing a vocabulary for people’s feelings and inner states. She believes that understanding human emotions, and precisely defining them, is the beginning of abundant life, how through grace we share with others.

Brown writes that many researchers have compiled lists of fears. These range from rodents and snakes, to the inability to see our surroundings, to seeing our children in danger. But no matter how much the lists vary there is one thing they share in common, that is, fear of social rejection. We experience social pain and physical pain in the same part of our brain. Exposure to pain drives fear.7

Brown observes that, “People will do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power.” What we have been broadly calling fear can be more precisely defined by words like anxiety, worry, and dread. Worry for instance is the chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen to us in the future. She points out that it is wrong to think that worry can be helpful for coping with the future. She also believes that worry is something that we have some control over and that it should not be suppressed entirely.

“Spiritually disconnected” is the expression Brown uses that describes so much of what we have been experiencing lately. This is what happens when people are bonded together by shared fears and disdain for others. It is the “us versus them” culture. In contrast, being spiritually connected means respecting our common humanity. It is a way of reaching out to others in trust, respect and love.

As social beings, fear of social rejection will always be part of our struggle. But at the same time Brown argues that we need to learn a kind of vulnerability. I see her love of Jesus in this. Vulnerability is the emotion we experience during times of uncertainty, risk and exposure. She writes, “In a world where perfectionism, pleasing and proving are used as armor to protect our ego and feelings, it takes a lot of courage to show up and be all in when we can’t control the outcome. It also takes discipline and self-awareness to know what to share and with whom. Vulnerability is not oversharing, it’s sharing with people who have earned the right to hear our stories…”

We also need to learn a kind of courage expressed by Elie Wiesel’s admonition, “Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence.”

In one of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s last letters before his execution he writes, “I have come to know and understand more and more the this-worldliness of Christianity… I remember a conversation I had thirteen years ago with a young French pastor. We had simply asked ourselves what we really wanted to do with our lives. And he said: I want to be a saint… [and I said] something like I want to learn to have faith…”8 “One only learns to have faith by living completely in this world. One must completely renounce any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint or a converted sinner… then one throws oneself completely into the arms of God, and this is what I call this-worldliness: living fully in the midst of life’s tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities – then one takes seriously no longer one’s own sufferings but rather the suffering of God in the world. Then one stays awake with Christ in Gethsemane. And I think this is faith; this is metanoia. And this is how one becomes a human being, a Christian. How should one become arrogant over successes or shaken by one’s failures when one shares in God’s suffering in the life of this world?”

“You understand what I mean even when I put it so briefly. I am grateful that I have been allowed this insight, and I know that it is only on the path that I have finally taken that I was able to learn this. So I am thinking gratefully and with peace of mind about past as well as present things… May God lead us kindly through these times, but above all, may God lead us to himself… Yours, Dietrich.”

Earlier this week my friend Erin asked what do I do? Dorothy Day writes, “We cannot live alone. We cannot go to Heaven alone. Otherwise… God will say to us, ‘Where are the others?’”9

Put out into the deep: be a person of thought and prayer, “in absolutely constant relation to God.” Let down your nets, always seeking connection to others even when it requires vulnerability. Do not be afraid; “the overcoming of fear – that is what we are proclaiming here!”


1 Margaret Ruth Miles, Recollections and Reconsiderations (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018) 144.

2 5 Epiphany (2-10-19) C.

3 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Overcoming Fear,” Preached in Berlin on the Second Sunday after Epiphany, 15 January 1933 in The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Tr. Douglas W. Stott, Anne Schmidt-Lange, Isabel Best, Scott A. Moore, Claudia Bergmann (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012

4 It may be hard for us to really take in this morning’s readings or for them to work on us if we cannot call to mind the experience of really being afraid. Maybe this week’s fear has been enough to prepare us. In our first reading the Prophet Isaiah describes a kind of mystical vision or dream in which he finds himself at the throne of God with angels singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord…” Isaiah breaks down in fear and exclaims, “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen… the Lord of Hosts!” Then the angel touches Isaiah’s mouth with a coal. God asks, “Who shall I send…” And Isaiah who has been transformed says, “Here I am; send me (Isa. 6)!” We read this passage at my ordination. It evoked both my trepidation and enthusiasm to serve God, to be helpful in some way. Paul alludes to the fear he must have felt when God overwhelmed all of his senses and struck him blind on the road to Damascus. He reminds his friends at Corinth that Jesus appeared to him, “[l]ast of all… For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am…” (1 Cor. 15). Paul points out that experiencing God often makes us profoundly aware of our shortcomings but also powerful in new ways.

5 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience in William James Writings 1902-1920 (NY: The Library of America, 1987) 99.

6 Elmore Clemens Young, “Epiphany: Light of the World,” Sermon preached 8 January 1956.

7 Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (NY: Random House, 2021) 9-13.

8 Letter to Eberhard Bethge, July 21, 1944. I have made some slight changes based on my older version of Letters and Papers, page 369. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 8 Ed. Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge and Renate Bethge with Ilse Tödt Tr. Isabel Best, Lisa E. Dahill, Reinhard Krauss, and Nancy Lukens (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998)

9 “We cannot live alone,” she remarked. “We cannot go to Heaven alone. Otherwise, as Péguy said, God will say to us, ‘Where are the others?” Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) 115.

“O God we long for your truth. Let your spirit help us to understand what we believe.”1

View the sermon on YouTube.

What exactly is a sermon? What are we doing together and what do we hope happens?

1. 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 asking them to resign.2 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.”3 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.

In our greater congregation perhaps a few of us might feel thrilled that someone is finally talking decisive action. Others worry about how tariffs will affect our economy. But we also have many faithful government employees who regard their work as a ministry, a kind of calling from God. Others of us fear being deported, or that the government will dismantle and persecute our LGBTQ families. On the surface these may seem like far more important concerns than what I will raise here.

In these days everything seems personal, cruel, punitive and vindictive, even when we are talking about faith. In her sermon about unity at the Interfaith prayer service the day after the inauguration, Bishop Mariann Budde addressed the president directly. She said that LGBTQ children and immigrants are afraid. She pointed out that most immigrants make important contributions to society and are not criminals. Above all she asked the president to have mercy.4

Many people regarded Bishop Budde’s sermon as simply what they are accustomed to hearing every Sunday morning. After all Jesus’ teaching is really simple, “Love God and love your neighbor.” But to the president, who demanded an apology, and his most zealous supporters the bishop crossed a line. One congressman (Josh Brecheen, OK) introduced a resolution against the sermon calling it, “a display of political activism and condemning its distorted message.”5 Another congressman (Mike Collins, GA) posted a video clip of the sermon and said that Bishop Budde, “should be added to the deportation list.”6 A Southern Baptist minister called National Cathedral, “the apotheosis of our civilizational decline” and urged the president to seize it from the Episcopal Church and give it to a more conservative denomination (such as the Southern Baptists).7 During a meeting this week one of our trustees asked if Budde’s sermon might affect the tax exempt status of the Episcopal Church. Somone else wondered if the president might use the IRS to retaliate against Bishop Budde.

This all may be nothing, just an effort to get attention, but I want to take these considerations seriously. We come from different branches of Jesus’ family so we may have a naturally hard time understanding each other. Detractors said that Bishop Budde’s sermon was not biblical, but it focuses on mercy. A form of that word occurs over 270 times in the (NRSV) Bible.

2. What is a sermon? Is it merely a source of comfort, an assurance that, we as a people, are fine just the way we are? Does a sermon simply “affirm our dependence upon God” and “pray for the president” as the congressional resolution says the bishop’s sermon should have done?8

In short, no, this is not what the prophets teach us. From Amos to Zechariah, the Old Testament prophets do not speak like this (Amos writes, “Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people” (Amos 3) and Zechariah says that God, “will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle,” (Zech. 14)). The prophets warn that mistreating widows, the poor and immigrants draws us away from God.

Today we have the perfect occasion for considering what a sermon is as we celebrate The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, also called Candlemas. It all begins with a story. Imagine Mary and Joseph starting their lives together, exhausted because their baby, Jesus, like any other newborn requires constant attention. They worry about his safety, about whether they are caring for him as they should. He interrupts their dreams and disrupts their days.9

Imagine the two of them sitting across the kitchen table. Joseph says something like, “we kept the law by circumcising him. Do we really have to take our one month old baby ninety miles so that we can make a sacrifice in the Temple?” I can imagine Mary replying, “Think of all that God has given us. Let’s keep our promise to God.”

Try to picture the sense of awe they feel as they arrive, seeking God’s blessing in a temple as magnificent as this cathedral. Perhaps they worry how people will treat them there… The Temple means something so different to the prophets Simeon and Anna. It is their home. They worship and fast there night and day. Some of us gathered here today are like this. Simeon and Anna have seen generations of children presented in the Temple. Famous for their wisdom and piety they are righteous and devout. The power of God “rests upon them.”

The Holy Spirit promised Simeon that he would not die until, “he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.” “Guided by the Spirit…” he takes the infant Jesus in his arms and praises God in some of the most often repeated words in history. “Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see. A light to enlighten the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”10 It seems almost as if Simeon is speaking directly to us when he says, “This child is destined… to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed… and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk. 2).

3. These two thousand year old words could be the most important sermon in my life: The expression of absolute joy as Simeon holds the baby, the acknowledgement of the pain that is an inescapable part of the human condition and the love of God through Jesus, a love that cares too much about us to leave us to our own devices.

I did so much research this week, poring through volumes on preaching that I do not have time to discuss with you. Instead I’m going to share one experience and one idea from the most important theologian of the twentieth century Karl Barth (1886-1968).11

Originally born in Switzerland Karl Barth was already a prominent theology professor in Germany when Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) came to power. Barth began to speak out publicly. As author of the Barman Declaration, he argued against what he called the “false doctrine” that the church, “could or should,” become, “an organ of the state” He said fascism is a religion and that it, “exalted sheer power.” He said, “Anyone who is in principle hostile to the Jews must also be seen as in principle an enemy of Jesus Christ. Antisemitism is a sin against the Holy Spirit.”12 Barth said, “I thought it was right to make it clear with whom I would like to be imprisoned and hanged.”13

Karl Barth was so dedicated to the struggle that he encouraged his friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer to come back to Germany. Bonhoeffer was later hanged shortly before his prison camp was liberated by the Allies. For the rest of his life Barth had regrets about this.

Barth himself was put to trial and sat across from the three judges who convicted him. They banned him from ever again speaking in public. He violated this order and on March 26, 1935 preached at the Second Free Reformed Synod in Siegen, Germany. I have always wondered what he said there.

Let me share what Barth believed about preaching. First, he writes about “the impossibility… of [speaking] about God.” He said preaching is not merely reading or paraphrasing scripture. Instead preaching is how God actually becomes known in our own time and circumstances. It happens in what he calls a, ”personal encounter,” “the concrete encounter of God and man today.” Barth says preaching has to be unconditionally free; it “is the event by which the church becomes the church.” And even more radical, preaching, “is speech in and by which God himself speaks.”14

What is a sermon? It is not an unimportant question. In every moment we all move closer to or further away from God. The inner thoughts of many are being revealed. The stakes are so high. But in Karl Barth’s case we are hearing from a man who, like Bishop Budde, knew what it felt like to preach a sermon that could have gotten him killed. Is what he says true? I believe it is.

Last week many of us listened to Bishop Rios preach from this pulpit. You could have heard a pin drop. All of us felt it together, a flood of God’s love filling us with joy, reminding us that no matter how bad the world gets, we are gathered by the Holy Spirit and Jesus is right here among us.

Earlier I mentioned that Simeon’s words may be for me the most important sermon of all time. Every night as I’m drifting off to sleep I repeat that prayer. They are the last words I have heard every night of my adult life. “O Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised…” And the cares of the world dissipate and I rest in the love of the one who is a light to enlighten the nations.


1 St. Anslem of Canterbury (1033-1109) addresses God saying, “I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but believe in order to understand.”

2 The letters describing our civil servants’ work as “lower productivity jobs in the public sector.” Kate Kelly, Michael C. Bender and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, “Official Email Urges Federal Workers to Find ‘Higher Productivity’ Jobs,” The New York Times, 31 January 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/us/politics/federal-workers-opm.html

3 Erica L. Green, “Federal Agencies Ordered to End Initiatives that Support ‘Gender Ideology,’” The New York Times, 29 January 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/us/politics/federal-agencies-ordered-to-end-initiatives-that-support-gender-ideology.html

4 https://sfbaytimes.com/full-transcript-of-the-2025-inauguration-prayer-service-address-by-the-rt-reverend-mariann-edgar-budde-the-bishop-of-washington/

5 The resolution in part says, “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given by the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism and condemning its distorted message. Whereas the National Prayer Service is a longstanding tradition in which the United States publicly affirms dependence upon God and prays for the success of our President and Vice President…” https://x.com/RepBrecheen/status/1882482367199150564/photo/1

6 https://x.com/RepMikeCollins/status/1881765967338131546?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

7 Do you think it is impossible to confiscate one of the nation’s great cathedrals? Many thought it would be impossible to freeze $3 trillion dollars in federal grants. The author calls Bishop Budde, “a priestess in the neo-pagan cult of wokeism.” He writes, “But now, this magnificent building with its neo-gothic design which once stood as a paragon of American excellence, has become the apotheosis of our civilizational decline and the latest example of how wokeness ruins everything it touches—including Christianity. Yesterday, decent Americans across the country were shocked when a video of Bishop Mariann Budde lecturing Trump, Vance, and their families about “showing mercy” to the LGBT community and illegal immigrants went viral.” Chase Davis, “Woke “Christianity” Causes National Embarrassment at the National Cathedral,” The Center for Baptist Leadership, 22 January 2025. https://centerforbaptistleadership.org/woke-christianity-causes-national-embarrassment-at-the-national-cathedral/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

8 See footnote 3.

9 Presentation (2-2-03) B.

10 Translation from “Evening Prayer II,” in The Book of Common Prayer, 120.

11 Barth’s life decisively changed when many of his theology teachers wrote an open letter supporting German aggression in WW I. It led him to deeply question the theologians of the nineteenth century and their ideas.

12 “[T]he Jewish question is virtually the question for statements of Christian belief.” Mark Galli, Karl Barth: An Introductory Biography for Evangelicals (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017).

13 Mark Galli, Karl Barth: An Introductory Biography for Evangelicals (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017) 72-96.

14 “In relation to God man has constantly to let something be said to him, has constantly to listen to something.” Karl Barth Church Dogmatics Volume I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God Tr. G.W. Bromiley (New York: T&T Clark, 1936) 52-73.

Dear Friends,

Exactly one year ago today, our Dean Emeritus Alan Jones died in San Francisco. He served as Dean of Grace Cathedral from 1985 to 2009. I learned a tremendous amount from him over the years. I have especially fond memories of being in my twenties and talking to Alan about preaching or theological topics.

Now, every time I walk down the Chapter House stairway past the stained glass window of purple-robed Noah on his ark, I think of Alan. He used to describe Grace Cathedral as a kind of ark, a place of safety and community in the midst of a stormy and dangerous world. There are many tributes to him around the cathedral campus. The dean’s office is dedicated to his memory. There is also the beautiful stained glass window of the Madonna from Chartres Cathedral that we have in the north aisle just outside the Interfaith Memorial AIDS chapel.

For years I would carry a pen and paper whenever I would meet with Alan so that I could write down ideas and stories. After dutifully in my sermons describing Alan as their source, he would always say, “Don’t mention me. I got those stories from somewhere else too!”

We miss Alan very much, but the clarity of his vision for what Grace Cathedral could be is still with us. We will always be a house of prayer for all peoples, a place that reminds us that God loves everyone without exception.

Every day, we are praying for those fighting the fires that are still raging in Southern California, for those in danger, and for those who have lost homes and businesses. If you or your family is deeply affected, our pastoral care team would like to know. You can reach us at: pastoralcare@gracecathedral.org.

Next Thursday, January 23, we’ll dedicate Choral Evensong to prayers for fire relief. Join us in-person or via livestream as we ask God’s healing for the human community and the earth.

The first Southern California home I lived in is now in the evacuation area, and my cousins’ old neighborhood has been reduced to ash. It will be hard to go back and see the destruction.

I’m just grateful that God has given us each other. In good times and disasters we help each other to make it through. Let us bless the Lord!

Love,

Malcolm

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young

Dean

PS. Episcopal Relief & Development is working with local diocesan partners to assess the needs of evacuees and provide support in the coming days. Please make an urgent gift to the Wildfire Response Fund now.


A Prayer During California Fires

Lifegiving God we thank you for the Santa Monica mountains, the San Gabriel mountains, the San Bernadino mountains and all the beauty of the California Southland. As fires consume the chaparral in the parched hills, as so many neighborhoods across Los Angeles erupt into flame, we pray for the safety of all first responders and for residents who live in the path of danger and destruction.

We pray for those who have lost their lives. We pray for those who seem to have lost everything and for all those who have been evacuated. Bless them with calm minds, wise decisions, ready helpers and the physical and spiritual resources that will bring them safely through these days of fire.

We pray for their families, friends and all those who worry about them. We pray that when they feel hopeless and exhausted this experience will be accompanied by a sense of your life-giving presence. 

Bless the City of Angels and all leaders, government officials, workers and experts who give assistance. Help us to provide for all those who have no homes, for those who live in poverty, who suffer from illness and addiction. Let us build a society where every person is cared for and belongs.

Finally, transform our minds so that we learn to put the well-being of the earth and all of its inhabitants first. Show us how to heal our world. We pray this in the name of the one who comes again and again in your name, Jesus. Amen.

Watch the sermon on YouTube.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Lk. 3).

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.[i]

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.”[ii]

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.”

2. 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.”[iii] 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?”[iv]

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.”[v]

3. 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.[vi] 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 voi


[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Gulch_fire

[ii] Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) xiii, 300-1.

[iii] 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

[iv] David Foster Wallace, “This Is Water,” Commencement Speech, Kenyon College, 2005. https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/

[v] Cited in a letter from Rev’d Dr. Vincent Pizzuto sent on Friday 10 January 2025.

[vi] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/11/us/los-angeles-fires-california

Dear Friends,

My phone is ringing off the hook today with calls having to do with the fires around Los Angeles County. We have been praying so much for everyone down there. As I write, I think the evacuation border is only a few blocks north of my old office at 100 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. The suffering experienced by our neighbors, friends, and family members down south is unfathomable. I am sure we will see many evacuees worshiping here with us on Sunday.

It feels especially strange to not be able to pray for everyone in the cathedral during the weekdays this week. The Cathedral has not had electricity and has been closed for long-scheduled major work on our electrical systems.

And yet, the week has been filled with blessings, too. On Tuesday night, there was an Interfaith service for our new mayor, Daniel Lurie, at Temple Emanu-EL. The Rev Miguel Bustos wrote a beautiful prayer for the occasion, and I was able to do the final blessing on behalf of the 800 communities of faith in San Francisco. It was beautiful, but by far the most powerful moment came when the new mayor’s father, a rabbi, laid his hands on the mayor-elect and prayed for him in Hebrew and English. 

There does seem to be a new spirit of hope and cooperation around the city this week. At Grace Cathedral we have a central role in the renewal of our shared life together. I am grateful to be doing this ministry with you.

Wherever you find yourself today—filled with concern for loved ones and yourself or discovering unexpected joy in this warm weather as God feels more tangibly present—I am praying for you. May God bless you and keep you.

Love,

Malcolm

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young
Dean


A Prayer During California Fires

Lifegiving God we thank you for the Santa Monica mountains, the San Gabriel mountains, the San Bernadino mountains and all the beauty of the California Southland. As fires consume the chaparral in the parched hills, as so many neighborhoods across Los Angeles erupt into flame, we pray for the safety of all first responders and for residents who live in the path of danger and destruction.

We pray for those who have lost their lives. We pray for those who seem to have lost everything and for all those who have been evacuated. Bless them with calm minds, wise decisions, ready helpers and the physical and spiritual resources that will bring them safely through these days of fire.

We pray for their families, friends and all those who worry about them. We pray that when they feel hopeless and exhausted this experience will be accompanied by a sense of your life-giving presence. 

Bless the City of Angels and all leaders, government officials, workers and experts who give assistance. Help us to provide for all those who have no homes, for those who live in poverty, who suffer from illness and addiction. Let us build a society where every person is cared for and belongs.

Finally, transform our minds so that we learn to put the well-being of the earth and all of its inhabitants first. Show us how to heal our world. We pray this in the name of the one who comes again and again in your name, Jesus. Amen.

Blessing of the Mayor

Almighty God, the Heavens declare your glory. You made the universe with all of its marvelous order, its atoms, worlds and galaxies, along with the infinite complexity of living creatures. On the edge of this continent, looking west at the vast Pacific Ocean we thank you for this city that in its best moments seems so inspired by the generous faith exemplified by Francis of Assisi.

May we share a portion of this trust as we ask your blessing on Daniel. On the evening before he takes up the mantle as our city’s mayor we especially thank you for his compassion.

Help him to always remember those who have no home, those who are old or sick and those who have no one to care for them. Give him the spirit of wisdom, charity and justice to safeguard the dignity of every person, to ceaselessly battle poverty, prejudice and oppression. Help us together to make San Francisco a place where people from different cultures with differing talents may find they belong.

Magnify in Daniel the intelligence to distinguish between what is personal and what is not. Help him to continue to act not out of a sense for his high office but through his love of service. May all those he serves and those who work with him know that he sees and respects them. When someone fails or disappoints him may he show graciousness and build bridges to reconciliation and renewal. Let him learn even to welcome criticism.

Help him to be a deep listener. Grant him the gift of finding the healing word. Bless him with friends who will share uncomfortable truths freely. Let him love the way this new role will allow him to grow.

Finally, thank you for the generations of ministry the people of Temple EmanuEL in our city. Thank you for gathering us together tonight from Excelsior to Land’s End, from the Embarcadero to the Outer Sunset, from Bay View to Union Square. In this far too busy life we are grateful for moments to thank you for our existence and to celebrate with joy what is new and what gives life and hope. Amen.

Watch the sermon on YouTube.

“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven” (Phillips Brooks).[1]

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.[2]

Tonight, really ask yourself, is your god money, career, or power? Is it a political view, or simply avoiding conflict? Is it the way other people see you? Tonight there is a chance that we will encounter the real God, that mysterious but personal force who brings the cosmos into being, who sustains us even when everything else goes wrong. My sermon comes in three short chapters on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Christmas and Empire and the Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).

1. AI. This Christmas people have been asking me variations on a single question. What do theologians think about Artificial Intelligence? With this in mind I asked ChatGPT for jokes that I might tell you tonight. I think the best one was, “The AI sermon at midnight started with, ‘Greetings humans. Let us optimize the true meaning of Christmas for maximum peace and good will.’ It nailed it.” Another went, “And lo the AI pastor said unto them: Fear not for I bring you good algorithms of great joy.”

It turns out that at this stage in the technology AI jokes are a lot like “Dad Jokes.” They are funny by not being funny. They use silly puns like “stable connection.” They get confused and insert quotes from Santa Claus into the story of Jesus.[3]

The actual sermon I asked ChatGPT to compose simply does not work.[4] The AI sermon contains only platitudes – nothing risky or dangerous, nothing that could offend. It is not political, spiritual or for that matter real. It has no heart. It uses words like love and good news but only in a flat one dimensional way, in a way that has no meaning.

Perhaps the singularity is indeed near and machines are about to overtake our ability to control them. But for now AI learns to chat like a human by scanning and aggregating vast amounts of data.[5] But the problem still remains that all this information comes from us and so AI just mirrors back to us some of our worst flaws.

This is especially true when it comes to religion, which most people treat too literally. If your god, like mine, is what matters most to you and that sometimes this corresponds to the real god and often not, AI does not yet have anything to say to us.

This makes sense. Of all words “God” is the most difficult to imagine. Theologians say that God is the mysterious ground of our being and so far beyond our ability to reason or control, that anything we say about God is more incorrect than it is correct.

So we gather together at this shared table on the holiest night of the year, all of us with our different experiences of God, with gratitude for this moment when we feel our existence so deeply.

2. Empire. Although we tend to domesticate and soften it, and fade out the sharpness of its focus, the Christmas story is an all too human one. That means it begins with human cruelty and pain. In the year 9 BCE the Roman senate consecrated the Ara Pacis Augustae, the Altar of Augustan Peace. You can still see it today. It honored the return to Rome of the Emperor Augustus (in 13 BCE) from wars in Hispania and Gaul. The Pax Romana or Pax Augusta was enforced through intimidation, violence and control. This so-called peace was symbolized and made real by crucifying people.[6]

Luke writes his Gospel in just this context. He intentionally presents us with competing proclamations, competing kings with similar titles. On the one hand we have the Emperor Augustus (called divi filius or “Son of the Divine”) requiring everyone to be registered and recorded. The Emperor’s army checks everyone’s documents to make sure that no one slips beyond his control.

In contrast to this Luke describes the message of God’s angel who says, “Do not be afraid I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this day… a Savior… you will find a child wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.” Despite the darkness of inhumanity all around us the spirit of God is still at work. This should not sound like ancient history to us.

In a recent article entitled “Torn Apart,” the legal scholar Patricia Williams writes about “zero tolerance” American child separation policies that between 2017 and 2020 took away more than 5,500 immigrant children and scattered them across the country. Today it is estimated that more than a thousand families have not been reunited. She writes, “never before in our history [has] there been an actual policy of removal devised simply as theatrical cruelty that might serve to frighten other migrants from coming here.”[7]

The preacher Sam Wells says, “human beings will never create a good outcome to their own story, neither individually [nor] collectively by creating… Instead, God brings the future towards us and ushers us into ultimate companionship with the Trinity, one another, and the new creation, in spite of and uninhibited by our selfishness and fear.”[8] The Good News is that God cannot be manipulated or controlled. The savior is here.

3. Thoreau. As a young man Henry David Thoreau recognized that people’s gods had very little to do with the actual God. On July 4, 1845 at the age of twenty-seven, Thoreau went to live in a small cabin above the shore of Walden Pond. Many people asked him why he did this and he would answer by quoting the Westminster Catechism (1643), the puritan statement of faith from Oliver Cromwell’s (1599-1658) time. It begins exactly where we started tonight by asking, ”What is your God?” or to put it in the exact words of the Shorter Catechism “Q: What is the Chief end of man? A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.”[9]

Thoreau points out that although pretty much everyone says they believe in the God of the Bible it does not take more than a glance to realize that, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” He calls it “unconscious despair” and says, “You are the slave-driver of yourself.” Thoreau writes, “To be awake is to be alive. I have never met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?”[10]

For two years and two months in the cabin by himself Thoreau tried an experiment. He wanted to find out if life was worth living. He wanted to encounter what was most real, to let go of his own picture of god and to experience the real God even if it was just a terrifying void.


Thoreau writes about the one time he felt lonely. It was not long after he started. He writes, “In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight… an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me… Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me… I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.”[11]

Weathering “merry snowstorms” (256) to discover the dens of wild animals, climbing to the top of a white pine tree during a storm, drifting in his rowboat on the surface of the pond gazing up at the clouds on a summer afternoon – these encounters with beauty and holiness lead Thoreau to exclaim. “In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment.”[12]

I spent half a year reading Thoreau’s entire Journal. Every week I would bring my toddler son to places he mentioned in those pages. I kept a journal myself to record what we saw and learned. Let me share the entry for Saturday 27 January 2001.

“I feel a mild melancholy as I finish [reading] Thoreau’s Journal… Part of us wishes he never did leave the woods. We want to imagine him there still… [I know his future as] I read I keep thinking. Rejoice Henry, you will never watch the spring come in again. You will never see the particular beauty of the river currents again, you will never come so close to fully imagining the life of a muskrat, you will never see another leaf drift down in the Beech forest near to Sandy Pond. For God’s sake Henry, enjoy that warm breeze as you watch west from the Fairhaven Cliffs to see the sun set behind a bank of horizontal clouds, this is the end. Perhaps I can say the same thing for us.”[13]

What for you is God? For me God is that presence nearest to the center of our being, the one we see more clearly on Christmas Eve. God is the one who reminds us that who we are will never be captured by an algorithm and that we require something beyond human technology to save us. In the face of each generation’s “theatrical cruelty” God shows us the dignity of every human life. And finally to be alive is to be awake, fully conscious of the unity we share with nature. Merry Christmas my friends.

Production Notes:

Computer

Emperor Augustus

Patricia Williams

Separated Child

Walden Pond in rain or snow


[1] “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear my hear his coming but in this world of sin where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” Phillips Brooks. “Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the Lord when he comes” (Psalm 96).

[2] Cyprian Smith, The Way of Paradox: Spiritual Life as Taught by Meister Eckhart (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1987) 29.

[3] Question: “Write jokes about preaching an AI sermon at midnight on Christmas Eve.”
Answer: “Here are some light-hearted jokes about preaching an AI sermon at midnight on Christmas Eve:

  1. “And lo, the AI pastor said unto them: ‘Fear not, for I bring you good algorithms of great joy!'”
  2. “I asked the AI to write my Christmas sermon, and it replied, ‘Let us debug our sins and update our spirits!’ Amen to that!”
  3. “Why did the AI preacher schedule the sermon at midnight? Because it needed to run on God’s time, not Greenwich Mean Time.”
  4. “During the midnight sermon, the AI said, ‘Let there be light,’ and the projector turned on. It was a Christmas miracle!”
  5. “The AI sermon at midnight started with, ‘Greetings, humans. Let us optimize the true meaning of Christmas for maximum peace and goodwill.’ It nailed it.”
  6. “I asked the AI preacher for a midnight Christmas message, and it replied, ‘Let’s rejoice—no glitches detected in the heavenly system tonight!'”
  7. “The AI pastor delivered its Christmas Eve sermon with precision but got confused during communion—it kept offering cookies instead of bread.”
  8. “Midnight AI sermons are great because they never go overtime—they simply conclude with, ‘This message has been delivered successfully.’ No extra words.”
  9. “At the midnight sermon, someone asked the AI if it believed in Christmas miracles. It replied, ‘Of course, I’m proof they exist!’”
  10. “The AI preacher ended the sermon with, ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good… data connection!’”

Here are more AI-themed Christmas Eve sermon jokes to keep the laughs coming:

  1. “The AI sermon began with, ‘In the beginning was the Word… and it was stored in the Cloud!'”
  2. “Why did the AI preacher excel at Christmas Eve sermons? Because it always knew the most relevant scripture to download.”
  3. “The AI preacher’s Christmas message was inspiring, but it accidentally looped ‘Silent Night’ 128 times—debugging holiness takes practice!”
  4. “Someone asked the AI if it knew the true meaning of Christmas. It replied, ‘Processing… Love, joy, and a stable connection to all.'”
  5. “At midnight, the AI preacher said, ‘May your spirits be high and your batteries fully charged this Christmas!’ A modern blessing indeed.”
  6. “The AI’s sermon had a beautiful line: ‘Unto you a Savior is born… system version 1.0, fully compatible with hope and grace.'”
  7. “Mid-sermon, the AI paused and said, ‘Apologies for the interruption. Recalculating star coordinates for the Magi—thank you for your patience.'”
  8. “The AI preacher gave a heartfelt sermon but concluded with, ‘And remember: Always back up your faith in the cloud of heaven!'”
  9. “When the AI preacher asked for offerings, it said, ‘Kindly tap your hearts on the collection plate—also, it accepts contactless payments!'”
  10. “The AI closed its sermon with: ‘Go forth in peace, love, and firmware updates for a brighter tomorrow!’ And the congregation said, Amen.”

These are the Bing responses:
“Sure, here are some lighthearted jokes about preaching an AI sermon at midnight on Christmas Eve:

  1. Why did the AI preacher get a standing ovation at midnight on Christmas Eve? Because it delivered a sermon with zero errors and infinite grace!
  2. What did the AI say when it started its Christmas Eve sermon? “Fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy… and a 99.9% uptime guarantee!”
  3. Why did the congregation love the AI’s Christmas Eve sermon? Because it was programmed to be both holy and wholly entertaining!

I hope these bring a smile to your face! Merry Christmas! 🎄”

[4] The AI sermon sounds to me like the epitome of what someone who does not go to church thinks a sermon is:

“Beloved in Christ,

On this most holy night, we gather to celebrate the wondrous mystery of God’s love made manifest in the birth of Jesus Christ. The readings we have just heard from Luke, Isaiah, the Psalms, and Titus form a symphony of hope, light, and joy—a message the world needs as much now as it did on that first Christmas night.

Luke’s Gospel transports us to Bethlehem, to a humble stable where the Savior of the world is born. The angel’s proclamation to the shepherds resounds through the ages: “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). In this simple yet profound moment, heaven and earth are united. The King of Kings enters the world not with trumpets and thrones, but with the cries of a newborn child and the humility of a manger. This is a God who comes to dwell among us—to share our humanity, our joys, and our sorrows.

Isaiah’s prophecy declares, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined” (Isaiah 9:2). Tonight, we are reminded that the light of Christ shines brightest in the deepest darkness. Whatever shadows may linger in our lives—whether they be fear, grief, or uncertainty—the birth of Jesus assures us that God’s light cannot be overcome.

Psalm 96 calls us to respond with joy: “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the whole earth… let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder and all that is in it” (Psalm 96:1, 11). This is a cosmic celebration, for the birth of Christ is not just for humanity but for all of creation. On this night, the heavens rejoice, and the earth is glad, for the Lord has come to dwell with us.

In his letter to Titus, Paul writes, “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all” (Titus 2:11). This grace teaches us to live with hope and expectation, to renounce the things that pull us away from God, and to embrace the love that transforms our hearts and lives. The birth of Christ is not just a historical event; it is a present reality that invites us into a new way of living—one marked by peace, justice, and love.

So, what does this mean for us tonight, as we gather to celebrate the Nativity of our Lord?

First, it means that God’s love is for all people. The angels appeared not to kings or priests but to shepherds—ordinary people living on the margins of society. This good news is for everyone, regardless of status, wealth, or background. The Christ child is born for you, for me, for the whole world.

Second, it means that hope is stronger than despair. The world Jesus entered was one of oppression, poverty, and fear. Yet his birth ignited a hope that could not be extinguished. Whatever burdens we carry tonight, we are invited to lay them at the manger and trust in the God who brings light into our darkness.

Finally, it means that we are called to share this good news. The shepherds did not keep the angel’s message to themselves; they went to see the child and then spread the word to others. Like them, we are called to proclaim the joy of Christ’s birth through our words and actions, bringing hope and love to a world in need.

As we kneel before the manger tonight, may we open our hearts to the wonder and mystery of God’s love. May the light of Christ shine in us and through us, bringing peace and joy to all we encounter. And may we join with the angels and shepherds, with all creation, in singing: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (Luke 2:14).

Merry Christmas, dear friends. Amen.

[5] Jessica Mesman, “The Problem with AI Is Us,” The Christian Century, 28 March 2024. https://www.christiancentury.org/features/problem-artificial-intelligence-us

[6] Wikipedia, “Augustus.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus

Wikipedia, “Ars Pacis.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ara_Pacis

[7] Patricia J. Williams, “Torn Apart,” The New York Review of Books, Volume LXXI, Number 19, December 5, 2024, 16.

[8] “With the Not on Your Life story, what’s really at stake is the Christian virtue of hope. Hope says human beings will never create a good outcome to their own story, neither individually by concocting their own survival in a robot nor collectively by creating an idealized utopia. Instead, God brings the future toward us and ushers us into ultimate companionship with the Trinity, one another, and the new creation, in spite of and uninhibited by our selfishness and fear. We can’t know if AI will eradicate humankind, but we can trust that it won’t eliminate God. The truth is that humankind will die out eventually, by external catastrophe or internal folly. But hope informs us that what God has in store for us individually and collectively is so much more than what we now have—and that our ultimate future lies in God’s hands, not ours.” Sam Wells, “Faith, Hope, Love, and AI,” The Christian Century, 16 February 2024. https://www.christiancentury.org/voices/faith-hope-love-and-ai

[9] The Westminster Standard, “Shorter Catechism: Text and Scripture Proofs,” https://thewestminsterstandard.org/westminster-shorter-catechism/

[10] Henry David Thoreau, The Illustrated Walden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971) 8, 7.

[11] Ibid., 132.

[12] Ibid., 97.

[13] Saturday 27 January 2001

“a concert of redwings…  Some old and skillful performer touches these deep and liquid notes, and the rest seem to get up a concert just to encourage him.  Yet it is ever a prelude or essay with him, as are all good things, and the melody he is capable of and which we did not hear this time is what we remember.  The future will draw him out.”

Henry David Thoreau, Journal XIII (4/29/1860), p. 265

I keep planning to stop writing here.  I’m preaching next week but far more importantly I have been immersed in the waters of nostalgia as I come to the end of reading Thoreau’s Journal.  I began this whole reading enterprise in July or August and it has been a central part of nearly every day.  At night I dream of all these places.  In the afternoons I visit them or try to imagine how my reflections on them could be of use to someone else.  More than anything I need to stop writing here and begin writing my dissertation.

I keep feeling a mild melancholy as I read Thoreau’s Journal.  I guess this feeling is related to what one might feel in approaching the end of Walden.  Part of us wishes he never did leave the woods. We want to imagine him still there.  This kind of feeling is intensified in reading the Journal. We want to believe that he never did stop his work as a watchman for the glory of God, attentive to the seasons and the phenomena which presented itself to him in Concord.  As I read the account I keep thinking.  Rejoice Henry, you will never watch the spring come in again.  You will never see this particular beauty in the river again, you will never come so close to fully imagining the life of a musquash, you will never see another leaf drift down in the Beech tree forest near to Sandy pond.  For God’s sake Henry enjoy that warm breeze as you watch west from Fairhaven Cliffs and see the sun set behind a bank of horizontal clouds, this is the end.  Perhaps I could say the same thing for us.

Malcolm Clemens Young, Harvard Notebook (Unpublished), Chapter 20, Saturday 27 January 2001.

Watch the sermon on YouTube.

“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).

How does the idea of sin function in a mature person’s spirituality? For nearly six months a 92-year-old woman living in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles heard what sounded like raccoons in the crawl space under her house. Then about a month ago at 10:30 p.m. on a Thursday night the police responded to a call there. They discovered a naked 27 year-old-man living under her house.

The crawl space is only two feet high. At first the police tried using dogs to remove its occupant but he ignored them. They used tear gas twice and finally arrested him at 4:25 a.m. the next morning. The newspapers quoted the son-in-law of the house’s owner who said, “It’s a bizarre thing, but it’s not probably uncommon, you know, in this day and age, people are looking for shelter.”1

People are looking for shelter. In the first few months of studying Hebrew a student learns the word for Egypt.2 It is mitzrayim and literally means “the narrow place.” One might regard the whole Bible as the extended story of escaping from that narrow, confining place where people are degraded and dehumanized. This is what Egypt represented for the ancient Hebrews. We too yearn for a society where people do not have to live in crawl spaces. In our day we also long for freedom to be complete, to have lasting joy.

The Puritans had a simple three part sermon structure that I sometimes use. It begins with a text from the Bible. Then they describe a doctrine, that is a Christian way of seeing the world (like for instance the idea of sin or the nature of God). And finally they close with an application to life so that listeners can use what they learned for the sake of God’s realm.

Today I am going to do this in reverse. We will start with what the world around us is like. Then we will go on to talk about sin and the unique way that Christians experience our existence. And finally we will conclude with a brief meditation on Luke’s introduction to the New Testament prophet John the Baptist.

1. We have beliefs that lie so deeply lodged in our consciousness that we cannot even conceive of the possibility that they are not true. These include big communally shared ideas and ideologies about capitalism, technological progress, democracy and race.3 But they also include our individual sense of self-worth and the value of others. We tell ourselves stories about deserving love and good things, and about not having them. We hold a constant conversation with ourselves about how people are responding to us (I’m even doing it right now!).

If we were to meet a perfectly self-confident person, that one would be so different from everyone else that we would hardly know how to respond. That person would be fully grounded in God. That person would be like Jesus.

The twentieth century psychologist Alfred Adler (1870-1937) wrote that, “To be human means to feel inferior.” He invented the idea of an inferiority complex and noted that humans usually respond to this feeling in one of two ways: either with shyness and low self-esteem or overcompensating with pomposity and narcissism.4 Oprah Winfrey’s style coach Martha Beck gives advice about, “party anxiety” and “party-impaired people” who in their interactions with others feel “shame, fear and cruel judgment.”5 Our social circumstances vastly exaggerate these natural tendencies.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett write at length about the dangerous modern myth of meritocracy in their book The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well-being. They point out that inequality may be America’s most serious problem. From the 1930’s to the 1970’s inequality was significantly reduced in our society. However from the 1970’s to today inequality has dramatically increased.

In the 1970’s the differences in pay between CEO’s and production workers averaged between 20:1 and 30:1. In the first decade of this new century they increased tenfold to 200:1 or 400:1.6 I could make this point in dozens ways. For instance, the bottom half of Americans hold only 2.5% of the overall wealth in our society ($51,000).7 40% of American children live below or near the poverty line.8 This is the reason people resort to living in the crawl space of another person’s house.

When I talk to young people about the years before they were born inequality is the change that I most emphasize. Wilkinson and Pickett have compared nations and American states that have different levels of inequality. They found that unequal societies have worse health: lower life expectancy, higher rates of mental illness and obesity. In Japan and Germany one out of ten people have experienced a form of

mental illness. In the United States it was more than one in four.9 Unequal societies experience more violence, higher rates of imprisonment, lower levels of well-being.

Trust and community are more broken in unequal societies and this makes life worse for everyone not just the people suffering at the bottom of the wealth scale. All of us are negatively affected spiritually when we live in unequal settings. It has become destructive for us to believe that one’s station in society has mostly been determined by our industriousness, talent and competence, because it justifies terrible inhumanity.

2. For my second section I want to say a word about sin. I could offer a phone book sized summary of statistics but it would not be enough to curb our belief in meritocracy, that hard work means people get what they deserve. We know that some people feel superior because of their wealth. Some people feel superior to others because of their race or nationality. But this is true also – believing in God and not believing in God also makes people feel superior to others.

Believing in God is never simply an objective matter. Because having faith means that something is expected of us. Trusting in God changes how we experience our life and how we use it. For Jesus, believing in God means that we do not have to feel superior or inferior to others. They can simply be our sisters and brothers and siblings.

This week I’ve been listening to an audio recording of Alan Jones’ last book The Scandal of God: It’s a Metaphor Stupid! Why Fundamentalists (the Religious and the Atheist Kind) Have it All Wrong. He writes, “Religion promises to get us out of… self-absorption by giving us… a set of stories to guide us through the ups and downs of life in a confusing and conflicted world. This is what religion does. It binds things and people together, but not always in good ways…” Alan contrasts religion and science to what he calls “The Scandal of God.”

“The Scandal of God – which not so much answers our questions but questions our answers… [places] us before the ever-expanding horizon of wonder and amazement. I believe in God, in part, because it saves me from believing in anything else! Part of the scandal of God is that it brings us to the place where turning our ideas and prejudices into gods is seen to be absurd.”10

The idea of sin in a society of vast inequality and in our impoverished hearts reminds us of our natural limits as God’s creation. It helps us to not take our social conditions for granted but to find our own ways to contribute to justice and love. It releases us from the bonds of our ego so that we might discover our truest potential as human beings. It

also gives us the possibility of repentance. If you don’t believe in sin there is no reason to repent.

3. This brings us to my short final chapter on a picture of radical equality in Luke. Of the four gospels Luke cares the most that significant events have antecedents, causes, preparations.11 And so he describes the story of Jesus as beginning in the 15th year of the reign of Emperor Tiberias (28-29 c.e.). In those days Pontius Pilate was Procurator (not governor) of Judea (26-38 c.e.). After the death of Herod the Great his kingdom was divided into fourths (a Tetrarchy is one fourth of a region) and ruled by four kings. The Chief Priests had authority for life tenure over the Temple and the Sanhedrin (a kind of Supreme Court) although the Romans tried to control the chief priests by appointing and deposing them.

Listing these great names Luke concludes (echoing the beginning of Jeremiah) writing that, “the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah” (Lk. 3). The transformation does not come from the halls of power, but from a person inspired by the Holy Spirit in the wilderness around the Jordan River.

John has come to preach, to share good news of a baptism of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The Greek word for repent is metanoia. It means a total change of mind, a new pattern of thought and life. The Greek word used here for forgiveness is aphesis and it means to be set free.

And so I imagine being set free from this curse of inequality. John goes on, quoting the Prophet Isaiah, “every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill made low… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk. 3). How is the idea of sin part of a mature person’s spirituality?

The idea of sin helps people with mature faith to see beyond the deeply lodged falsehoods of our unconscious minds. It exposes the dangers of inequality and our own egos. We know that people are looking for shelter. Sometimes our existence can feel like a two foot high crawl space. But this Advent we are being drawn more deeply into holiness.

Let us pray: O God you know how our worldview confines us and we pray to be free. Protect us from our egos, from the thoughts that put us in competition with others. Take us from the narrow places of hostility, resentment, addiction, apathy, stress, greed and fear. May the example of Jesus always transform our hearts so that we may be filled by your generous openness. Amen.


1 Amanda Holpuch, “Man Found Living in Crawl Space of Los Angeles Home,” The New York Times, 12 November 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/us/man-crawl-space-arrested-los-angeles.html?searchResultPosition=1

2 Jo Ann Hackett, A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010).

3 Free trade, economic output, unemployment, etc.

4 Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well-Being (NY: Penguin, 2019), 10.

5 “If you are reading this with mounting excitement, thinking about the wonderful parties you’re going to throw or attend this holiday season, allow me to congratulate you. I’m one of the millions of party-impaired individuals who stand in awe of people like you—people who love to entertain, meet new friends, cavort with fun-loving crowds. When you invite the rest of us to your celebrations, we are honored, even though it brings us the same joy we’d feel if you handed us a large, angry scorpion.” Martha Beck, “Party on: A Survival Guide to Social-Phobes,” O Magazine, 23 November 2011). https://marthabeck.com/2011/11/party-on/

6 Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well-Being (NY: Penguin, 2019) 253.

7 https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/#:~:text=In%20the%20first%20quarter%20of,percent%20of%20the%20total%20wealth.

8 Ibid., xii.

9 Ibid., 44.

10 “Religion promises to get us out of the idiocy of self-absorption by giving us a story or a set of stories to guide us through the ups and downs of life in a confusing and conflicted world. This is what religion does. It binds things and people together, but not always in good ways. This is what we might call “The Scandal of Religion” in that it can take us in either direction – into slavery or into freedom. It’s like wandering in the desert looking for water. In our desperation and need we think we see an oasis, only to discover that it’s a mirage. Mirages are everywhere-the mirage of connection, the mirage of freedom. Part of the scandal of religion is that it peddles such mirages. Science is “scandalous” too in that it tends to promise more than it can deliver. Science is as prey to mirages as is religion. The “silent majority” to whom this book is addressed seeks to avoid the scandals of both science and religion. I argue for a third way – The Scandal of God – which not so much answers our questions but questions our answers by placing us before the ever-expanding horizon of wonder and amazement. I believe in God, in part, because it saves me from believing in anything else! Part of the scandal of God is that it brings us to the place where turning our ideas and prejudices into gods is seen to be absurd.” Alan Jones, The Scandal of God: It’s a Metaphor Stupid! Why Fundamentalists (The Religious and the Atheist Kind) Have it All Wrong (San Francisco, California: Grace Cathedral, 2023) 11. Also available on www.audible.com released on 08-23-23.

11 Biblical critical scholars point out the gospels differ in the amount of verses they dedicate to preparing the way for the ministry of Jesus and John. It takes Mark only 14 verses. It takes Matthew 75, and Luke 134 verses. Fred B. Craddock, Luke: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990) 45ff.

Watch the sermon on YouTube.

“God we are your children and you love us with a perfect love.”

In the face of hopelessness what do you do? Brené Brown writes that, “Hopelessness arises out of a combination of negative life events and negative thought patterns, particularly self-blame and the perceived inability to change our circumstances.”1

This weekend I spent time with a friend who I have not seen in a while. She is Palestinian and told me that about 100 of her family members and friends were killed in Gaza this year. The extent of the tragedy left me so shocked that I was at a loss for words. She even looks different, more gaunt. The trauma has hollowed her out. It shapes every moment of every one of her days. She cannot escape.

This frame of mind, this feeling of horror, you too may have come close to it. Perhaps it was when you cared for a loved one who was dying, or when your career melted down, or when your mental health seemed particularly unsteady, or when addiction or loneliness washed away the foundation of your life or that of someone you love.

Jesus offers challenging words for us this morning. But our suffering makes them easier to understand. Near the end of our church year, near the end of the Gospel of Mark, we encounter what scholars call Mark’s Apocalypse (Mark 13). The word apocalypse means unveiling, revealing. It is when what is true ceases to be hidden.

As Jesus leaves the Temple for the last time, it is the global center for all Jewish religious practice. His friends feel awed by the size of the stones used to build it. We would have been too. They were 35 feet long, 18 feet wide and 12 feet high. Jesus predicts the Temple’s total destruction and gives advice about how to live as a disaster unfolds.

Before I share his words, let me tell you more about the destruction of the temple from the perspective of someone who was there. Born into a priestly family, Josephus (37-100) could trace his roots back five generations. On his mother’s side he was a descendent of the Maccabees who, for a while one hundred years before (164-63 BC), had overthrown the domination of Alexander the Great’s Empire to establish a Jewish kingdom.

At twenty-seven Josephus went to Rome and successfully persuaded the emperor Nero to release imprisoned Jewish priests. He made influential friends in the ruling family and returned back to Jerusalem. Not long after his return in 66 CE the great Jewish revolt seemed like it was about to usher in a new age of freedom. At first he disapproved, but when the cause seemed like it would succeed he joined the rebels and was chosen by the Sanhedrin as the military governor of Galilee.

But then the Roman General Vespasian brought sixty thousand troops down from Antioch. For six weeks Josephus and his men held off the Romans at the fortress of Jotapata. The Romans overran the stronghold and put nearly everyone to death. Josephus escaped only by hiding in a vast underground reservoir and then convincing Vespasian to spare his life.2

As Vespasian’s slave Josephus acted as the chief negotiator at the siege of Jerusalem. But the city refused to surrender and ultimately after 143 days the Romans prevailed with their siege engines and inexhaustible fighting force. Fire spread from the outer hallways of the Temple to the whole city. Josephus writes, “[The Romans] ran everyone through whom they met with…”3

Josephus’ wife and parents were murdered there along with virtually everyone he knew from his childhood. Because of the great number of pilgrims who were gathered within the walls he estimates that 1.1 million people lost their lives. Another 97,000 were enslaved and sent to the Egyptian mines or to die as gladiators. The Romans destroyed everything.4

After predicting this destruction Jesus sits with his original four disciples on the Mount of Olives. They ask him when this will occur and what signs will there be ahead of time. Instead Jesus gives three pieces of advice. This is the story Mark shares in the aftermath of Jerusalem’s destruction.

1. First, Jesus says “beware that no one leads you astray.” In our time we are particularly prone to confuse political agendas for theological ones. In so many ways politics and economics have become false gods in our time.

David Bentley Hart (1965-) is a contemporary theologian who writes about the contrast between the ideas of modern atheist philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Christian thought. Hart argues that in our postmodern world many sophisticated people believe that there is nothing more than power. When you probe how they think and talk you will discover that they believe that power is what we all long for, that those

who have power write the stories that ultimately determine what is true. For them, beneath power, there is nothing, only more power.

Hart writes, “the difference between [the] two narratives: [is, the first] one… finds the grammar of violence inscribed upon the foundation stone of every institution and hidden within the syntax of every rhetoric, and [the other] claims that within history a way of reconciliation has been opened that leads beyond, and ultimately overcomes, all violence.”5

I love what Hart writes later. He says, “We are music moved to music… partaking in the inexhaustible goodness of God… 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.”6 Let us not be led astray on our pilgrimage to God.

2. The second piece of advice that Jesus gives his friends is “keep awake!” (Mk. 13:37). Pay attention to the signs of hope and awe all around us. Every day our children’s high school began with mindfulness meditation. Imagine sitting in a room with four hundred silent, meditating students. It was powerful. It also created a disposition of gratitude that shaped their entire day. The practice taught them to respond rather than to react. It helped them to know themselves better and I think to know God.

This week Heidi and I met Tara VanDerveer (1953-) for forty years the head women’s basketball coach at Stanford and one of the most successful coaches of all time.7 She talked about loving basketball from the age of ten. In her ninth grade yearbook the boys’ basketball coach wrote that she was the best player of all the boys and girls. But there was no girls basketball team at her high school.

When Title IX opened up women’s sports, she became a coach. On Wednesday night she talked about three of her most memorable players. The first, I’ll call her Sarah, was a walk-on player who sat on the bench next to the water cooler and only rarely playing in a game. The coach gave each player an index card with the instructions to put down, “what is your role on the team.” Sarah wrote, “to share joy!”

The second player she talked about was on the 1996 US Olympic Women’s Basketball team. The team stayed the night in Kyiv, Ukraine and woke up early. On their way to the bus at 7 a.m. in bitter cold they passed some very lightly dressed women who were begging. Most of the players got on the bus but one was late. She stopped and by the time anyone had noticed had taken out her wallet to give the women money. Soon she had opened her bags and given away her clothes. When the other players saw this they came out and did the same.

The last story Coach VanDerveer mentioned was a time she was giving a campus tour to a player at the beginning of the term driving around the beautiful oval. The coach asked her, “What are you looking forward to?” She expected the player to talk about her dorm or the wonderful training facilities. Instead this young woman said, “I’m looking forward to making the world a better place.” VanDerveer said that she was so surprised she nearly crashed into a palm tree. I could not help but think that none of these memories were about what happened on the court. She has the ability to see signs of hope and awe in ordinary situations.

3. Jesus final advice is to see past suffering and seek what might be the birth pangs of new life. One of my favorite pieces of art is called “The Dinner Party.” It was created by Judy Chicago in the 1970’s and is at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The artist felt deeply concerned about all the great historical and mythological women who had been ignored or forgotten. She put individual table settings for thirty-nine notable women (with 999 others mentioned). For me it is a kind of image of the apocalypse – when God’s love will be fully revealed and the dignity of every person will be evident to all.

In this spirit she wrote “Merger Poem.” For me it is about the Realm of God.

“And then all that has divided us will merge / And then compassion will be wedded to power / And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind / And then both men and women will be gentle / And then both women and men will be strong / And then no person will be subject to another’s will / And then all will be rich and free and varied

And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many / And then all will share equally in the Earth’s abundance / And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old / And then all will nourish the young / And then all will cherish life’s creatures / And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth / And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.”8

In the face of hopelessness what do we do? Today on ingathering Sunday we receive everyone’s pledge to support this great Cathedral. We will not be led astray. Even in the face of hopelessness we continue to see a way of reconciliation has been opened that leads beyond all violence. We experience ourselves as music moved to music, drawn by the inexhaustible goodness of God to the source of all beauty. We are awake to signs of hope and transcendence in ordinary experiences as we discover the birth pangs of new life in God.


1 Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (NY: Random House, 2021) 101.

2 One source says that Josephus hid there with forty others who planned to commit mass suicide by drawing lots as to who would be killed first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus

3 “[The Romans] ran everyone through whom they met with, and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men’s blood.”

4 “Flavius Josephus” in The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08522a.htm See the “Jerusalem” article in The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. Josephus, The War of the Jews, Book VI, Ch. 8.5 The Roman historian Tacitus believed that 600,000 Jews were killed.

5 David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 2003), 2.

6 Ibid., 195.

7 Commonwealth Club World Affairs Distinguished Citizens Award Annual Gala, 14 November 2024.

8 Judy Chicago, “Merger Poem.” https://www.spiritoflifecommunity.org/liturgy/pastors-letter/356-meditation-259-merger-poem-by-judy-chicago-1-22-2021

View the sermon on YouTube.

“[A]nyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has… passed from death to eternal life”(1 Thess. 4). 

Every day in the darkness just before morning Kenji paddles his surfboard out through the warm, green blue waters out beyond the reef at Waiehu on the Northshore of Maui. He never misses the moment when the soft gold of the sun rises through the ethereal clouds on the horizon. Kenji and I have been surfing at this spot for thirty years. I see him pretty much every day of the summer. 

Kenji is now about sixty years old with graying shoulder length hair. He drives a beaten old white pickup truck and speaks with a strong Japanese accent. We always greet each other and talk about distant storms. He has the most gentle and positive soul. 

Last Friday the water was murky with rain run-off and a tiger shark struck him, biting off his leg at the knee. With the help of friends Kenji made it to shore. They were able to slow the bleeding and get him to the hospital. Kenji is fortunate to still be alive, but I cannot stop thinking of how much he has lost.i He has lost a part of his body, his mobility, perhaps a sense of safety. He has lost surfing, that beautiful daily ritual that he left his native land for and which formed a kind of bridge to holiness.ii 

After the election in conversations around San Francisco this week so many people have shared their sense of loss with me. On Thursday night I gave Mayor London Breed a hug. She had only conceded the election a few hours before and I could see the disappointment written on her face. She feels like she still has so much to contribute. 

This week two people told me that they are considering moving overseas. Others have talked to me about how they feel like they are losing their picture of America. They dream of a multi-racial democracy with people gathered from every nation and in which every person is treated with dignity and respect. Like me they long for a world in which women and LGBTQ+ people in particular can fully participate and contribute to our common well-being. Yet others have talked to me about the importance of fairness and justice, that no one should be above the law. They feel perplexed that other citizens see our situation in a profoundly different light. 

Friday night I felt a profound sense of loss myself. As a young person I chose to study at Berkeley in part because it was such a rich center of religious learning. I remember the grand opening of the new Graduate Theological Union library in 1987 and going to the cozy chapel during rainy winter nights for the Community Eucharist at our local seminary Church Divinity of the Pacific. 

At Friday night’s banquet for theologians in the University Faculty Club I sat across from Arthur Holder the former Dean of the Graduate Theological Union, the GTU, that is, the consortium of seminaries on the northside of campus. He told me that Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and Church Divinity School of the Pacific will be leaving the GTU next year. The Jesuits will be moving to Santa Clara next year. Starr King, the Unitarian seminary, has already left. The number of new doctoral student shrinks every year and is down to less than a dozen. Half of the Pacific School of Religion campus has been converted into a private high school. In the not so distant future it might be possible that there will be almost no physical evidence of the seminaries. 

Since summer, our own regional seminary The Church Divinity School of the Pacific exists only online. Walking around campus as the sun started setting through the autumn leaves of the sycamore and liquid amber trees I felt overwhelming nostalgia and loss. The offices, classrooms and dorm rooms are all empty. There are no daily services taking place in the abandoned chapel. 

Every loss we experience is an echo of the impending loss of our own existence. Today during our annual requiem we especially remember loved ones who have died. In daily life we have to keep functioning and we need moments like this to feel the full enormity of their loss.    

Among so many others today I have especially in mind our dean emeritus Alan Jones. When I was a young man in clergy gatherings I always tried to sit near him, to take in his wisdom. After four decades of being with us here several times a week he died in January. We miss him very much. For the funeral Cricket his widow made an almost life sized print of Alan looking out at the viewer through the Ghiberti doors. We have that image up temporarily in the balcony. From the pulpit you can just make out his face. It feels like he is accepting us, encouraging us.

And that is exactly the point of our Requiem. In a world of cascading losses this service allows us to feel the full pain but to also experience it in the greater context of God’s love. We believe that no matter how far we fall into hopelessness that God is always reaching out to carry us through. We believe that Jesus understands our despair and offers us new forms of joy. 

Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) wrote the requiem we are hearing today from 1941-1947 in Paris during the darkest years of the deadliest conflict in human history. He wrote it in memory of his father. He composed this work so that you could experience the beauty of God and the love of God. 

Earlier I spoke about struggling church seminaries. At Grace Cathedral we are thriving. Hundreds more people visited us this week than usual and thousands more sought us out on the Internet. We are inaugurating a new girls’ choir with extraordinary, pioneering young women. The Choir of Men and Boys has never sounded more powerful. Hundreds of people heard them on Thursday for our special Choral Evensong with Multifaith Prayers for the Nation. 

In this time when the world has never needed us more God is with us – and we are becoming more alive. This week I read the sermon that Alan Jones preached here on October 22, 1989 the week of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Let me share with you an extended quote. 

“Earthquakes, wars, other disasters are all revelations…. [The earthquake] woke up in us the sleeping visions of a different, better world. I found myself galvanized by surprise! Maybe I will have to learn how to live all over again? I saw that same surprise in the faces of other people. Perhaps we have to learn over again what it is to be fully alive!” 

Alan concludes saying, “The resurrection moment is now. I bid you feel the tremor of this celebration, as we break bread and share it with one another. Feel. Feel. Feel. Feel — so that your lost heart may find itself and re-connect. Our sharing bread and wine is a foretaste… You and I, whether we live or die… [w]e belong to one another. We break bread today as if this were the first morning of the world, the first day of creation! We break it as if it were the last day. Oh, my friends, feel. Feel the earth tremble. Get connected! Find your heart! Honor the dead by being fully alive!”iii 

I’ve been wondering what Kenji will do without surfing, about the future of our country and our churches, about what happens when we die. My dear ones, God is with us. Together we will experience holiness and come alive again. It is the darkness of early morning. Let us talk together about distant storms and watch as the sun rises through the ethereal clouds on the horizon. 


i https://www.khon2.com/maui-news/61-year-old-wailuku-surfer-injured-in-shark-attack/

ii https://m.facebook.com/story.php story_fbid=pfbid02QUyWASWj9bdABywTFiqwfxPikWBoE9xhpsSzHXAKdoueMVZtQMEqKmWeFjvUTeXtl&id=100064481902692&mibextid=cr9u03

iii Here is more of Alan Jones’ sermon:

“You can’t always tell what’s being revealed. The paradox of revelation is that as much is hidden the same rock! Some people crash on that rock and come through unbelieving; others crash on it and come through to Faith. I have no idea why.

Sentimental and easy talk about miracles, about love and the Providence of God should stick in our throats in the face of tragedy, yet it’s true that we were magnificent last Tuesday night. We were at our best. That night was a revelation of our ultimate fragility, our vulnerability and our need for each other. It was a revelation of what is true all the time. Memories of world war Il flooded through my mind. As I was growing up, there were the flying bombs, or “doodlebugs.” When their engines cut out, there was a terrible silence as we waited for them to fall. It was impossible to know where the wretched things were going to drop.

Earthquakes, wars, other disasters are all revelations. To some, they open the door to Faith. To others, they close it. Is life a lottery? Tuesday night revealed to us our petty and ridiculous ambitions and our shabby visions. It also revealed to us depths of heroism and a sense of solidarity we had scarcely imagined. It woke up in us the sleeping visions of a different, better world. I found myself galvanized by surprise! Maybe I will have to learn how to live all over again? I saw that same surprise in the faces of other people. Perhaps we have to learn over again what it is to be fully alive! We had to think the unthinkable. We had to try to make sense of a senseless experience.

One way to make “sense” of experience is to say that nothing makes sense. If a human being is merely a collection of molecules, an accident on the stage of evolution, a freakish speck of mind in a mindless universe, what does it matter if a few people are killed in an earthquake? We’re thankful that it’s not us or anyone we know. We say, “Life has to go on!” It does. We’re right. We also know that we can’t prove that life has meaning. Life is taken on trust. Taking life on trust is a matter of faith. We know that, living lovingly and faithfully, there is no such thing as an earthquake-proof life.

Most of the time, we thank God for the anesthesia of routine; for the antidotes for relieving emptiness and anxiety. Now, we have an opportunity to be fully alive because all of us have come to the edge of the abyss…

For a few hours, we knew that we belonged to each other. All of us. For a while, we were born again. Strangers became friends. Suddenly we found ourselves linked to one another through fragility, vulnerability, heroism, and fear – all the things that make us human. We shall soon sink back into routine and forget what we have experienced. This cathedral with its quilts and its cranes, is an antidote to our amnesia. It is a reminder of the fact that we belong to each other.

Two years ago, Los Angeles suffered a serious earthquake. Our Bishop preached a magnificent sermon then on the Feast of St. Francis. He called on us to surrender to the resurrection power which could shake foundations, dislocate graves, turn over great stones, and lead people who are imprisoned in various forms of death into a path that re-connects the heart to the source of life. Bishop Swing went on, “You are called to do more than wallow in the sensate splendor of San Francisco and worry about Richter scales. The ‘Big One’ isn’t going to happen in California and it didn’t happen this week. The big one happened a long time ago in Jerusalem.” The Jerusalem moment is now. The resurrection moment is now.

I bid you feel the tremor of this celebration, as we break bread and share it with one another. Feel. Feel. Feel. Feel — so that your lost heart may find itself and re-connect. Our sharing bread and wine is a foretaste of the “Big One.” You and I, whether we live or die, are well-connected! We belong to one another. We break bread today as if this were the first morning of the world, the first day of creation! We break it as if it were the last day. Oh, my friends, feel. Feel the earth tremble. Get connected! Find your heart! Honor the dead by being fully alive!” Alan Jones, “Earthquake,” Sermon preached at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California, 22 October 2024.

Dear Friends,

After Tuesday’s election, it seems like the world has never needed Grace Cathedral more.

I’m writing to you from the Peet’s Coffee shop on Brannan and Sixth where it is impossible not to overhear the conversation at the next table. My neighbor is addressing someone else, “A convicted felon and he gets elected… devious, smart people with a plan… dysfunctional!” He sounds so hurt by the events of this week.

You may be hearing conversations like this, too. I have heard from immigrants who worry about mass deportations and from friends who feel the election revealed our culture’s deep misogyny and racism. Yet others wonder about whether or not their marriages are at risk. My neighbor is now talking about what this election will mean for the future of democracy and for wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Grace Cathedral includes such a wide diversity of people. We have some who are very pleased about the election, as well as others who feel overcome by grief. The world has never needed Grace Cathedral more.

We kept vigil on election day with morning and evening prayer and with Yoga on the Labyrinth. After the election, we put up a sign saying, “Enter in hope: Leave in peace. Pray Here.” This communication brought many more people than usual into the cathedral for silent prayer.

Thousands of additional others have reached out to our online channels. They have also joined us for daily online morning prayer, our Wednesday noon Eucharist, and the Vine. This week, a few hundred people came to our special Choral Evensong with Multifaith Prayers for the Nation. I can’t tell you how many people I have seen quietly walking the indoor and outdoor labyrinths!

In times like this, our core commitment to the dignity of all people and the integrity of the natural world is particularly important. John writes, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” With Jesus as our light, we remember that there is something beyond the human world of misunderstanding, intimidation, selfishness, and disappointment. We all have a share in the realm of God and I feel so very blessed that we are all in this together.

Please be sure to join us this Sunday at 11 am (November 10) for our annual All Souls’ Requiem. This is such a special and beautiful service. This year, our choir will be singing Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem accompanied by a full orchestra. It is one of the most beautiful musical offerings of the year in San Francisco. I look forward to seeing you here.

Love,

Malcolm

View the sermon on YouTube.

“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 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.1 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.”2

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.

2. 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.

3. 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.3 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.”4 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.5

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.


1 “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

2 Robert Gorski, “Disenchantment of the World” or Fragmentation of the Sacred,” in Robert N. Bellah, Challenging Modernity (NY: Columbia University Press, 2024) 319.

3 In his book The City of God Augustine writes that rather than the gods protecting Rome, Rome protected her gods.

4 “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

5 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&regi_id=13508633&segment_id=181999&user_id=f284507f51aad420f13c2727d615ae11

Grace Cathedral has announced that it is endorsing Proposition 3 (Constitutional right to marriage) and Proposition 6 (Elimination of involuntary servitude for incarcerated persons) on the November 2024 ballot.

Proposition 3 would remove a section of the California Constitution added by Prop. 8 (2008), which states that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. In its place, Proposition 3 would declare that the right to marry is a fundamental constitutional right. Although marriage equality has been shielded in California by later court rulings, Prop. 8 is capable of being brought back to life as long it is on the books. Beyond that, Prop. 8 is an affront to same-sex couples and everyone, Grace Cathedral included, who celebrates their marriages and welcomes them and their families into their community. Now is the time to permanently guarantee marriage equality in this state by passing Proposition 3.

Proposition 6 would amend the abolition of slavery clause in the California Constitution to remove a provision that allows involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. The state prison system relies on this provision to compel inmates to work at whatever task the authorities choose. If Prop. 6 passes, the abolition clause would simply read: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited.” The new language would be added to prohibit prison authorities from disciplining an inmate for declining a work assignment and authorizing them to award credits to inmates who voluntarily accept a work assignment. Grace Cathedral has been calling on the state legislature since 2020 to put this measure on the ballot. Voters in seven other states have amended their constitutions in recent years to eliminate the involuntary servitude exception. Prop. 6 gives California voters an opportunity to join the movement. We are proud to endorse Proposition 6 as well as Proposition 3.

Information about these and other ballot measures is available in the official California Voter Information Guide: https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/. The Guide will be mailed to registered voters in September. Vote-by-mail ballots will be mailed to registered voters on or before October 7, 2024. Grace Cathedral encourages all eligible persons to register and vote.

Statement Endorsing Prop. 3 and Prop. 6

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral, has issued the following statement to accompany the Cathedral’s endorsement of Proposition 3 and Proposition 6:

“Words matter. Words can be hurtful; they can heal as well. Today there is language in the California Constitution that allows forced labor in state prisons and denies some people the right to marry the person they love. The words are painful just to read, and they harm not only the people they are directed toward but also the moral character of California society. Proposition 3 and Proposition 6 give the voters an opportunity to make amends by removing these words from the state constitution. I want to explain why Grace Cathedral believes it is time to do so. Grace Cathedral is part of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. For this reason, we base our endorsement of Proposition 3 and Proposition 6 position not on merely political considerations but on religious conviction, our church’s ethical teachings, and personal experience.

Grace Cathedral has performed the Rite of Holy Matrimony in the Episcopal Church for same-sex couples ever since it became possible for us to do so in conformity with the laws of this state and the canons of the church. Although I am sure that our worshipping community believes that the right to marry is a civil right, our support for Proposition 3 flows from the conviction that Jesus’ message of radical inclusion and abounding love embraces all relationships. It is a joy for me and Grace Cathedral’s other clergy to celebrate and bless same-sex marriages and witness these couples, their families and children going on to lead happy, secure, and productive lives enriched by their faith and community. I wish everyone could experience what we see and know. Jesus came into the world so that everyone would understand that love is at the center of all creation. Because of this, we invoke his name when people take the extraordinary step of committing their lives to each other in the presence of God. God is the one who created the institution of marriage and gathers the company of friends and family whose love helps to sustain our relationships. Grace supports Prop. 3 because it guarantees that same-sex couples will not be denied the right to marry under the law, and also because it ensures that we can freely and fully exercise our religious right to speak the words that consecrate their marriages in the church.

Regarding Proposition 6, it is important to remember where the words “involuntary servitude” come from. Involuntary servitude is a reduced form of chattel slavery. A person in this status is not legally the property of another, but under the law and through physical force, they are in the same unfree conditions as a slave. Serfdom, peonage, sex trafficking, people with debts to a plantation owner that they can never discharge – this is what involuntary servitude means. Fabricated criminal charges leading to forced labor in prisons and work farms were a tool of the Jim Crow era in our history. Proposition 6 was included in the California Reparations Commission’s legislative recommendations. We teach schoolchildren that the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865. Are we honest in explaining that an exception to this rule has been made for prisoners? I hope that when Proposition 6 passes, we will be able to share the good news that another step has been taken toward the absolute abolition of slavery. The words of history matter.

The incarcerated people I’ve encountered in my experience want to work; they recognize labor as an activity that dignifies human life. California is already moving away from a punitive model to rehabilitation and community reintegration. Effective January 1, 2024, the California Penal Code declares that the simple fact of incarceration is enough to satisfy the punishment purposes of sentencing. From now on, the stated purpose of an inmate’s period of incarceration is rehabilitation and reentry, not further punishment. In the words of the legislation, “Effective rehabilitation increases public safety and builds stronger communities. In order to achieve these goals, it is essential that incarcerated people are able to live with dignity, are treated humanely, are able to maintain and build strong family and community connections, and have access to varied, high-quality educational and rehabilitative programs.” In the same vein, the Governor signed a bill in July 2024 that provides that if Prop. 6 passes, prisons will be required to develop a voluntary work program for inmates with written rules and regulations for work and programming assignments, including the wages for work performed. It is no longer necessary to keep the language in the state constitution authorizing forced labor in prisons to achieve the goals of the criminal justice system. While passing Prop. 6 will not put the question of what is fair and appropriate compensation to rest, it is another important step in transforming California’s approach to incarceration.

Both Proposition 3 and Proposition 6 require a popular vote because they would amend the California Constitution. We are responsible for taking cruel and unnecessary words out of the Constitution, whether or not we were responsible for them in the first place. Amending the words of the Constitution can be a healing moment. Slavery and involuntary servitude are America’s original sin. Denying same-sex marriage debases the institution of marriage. We have all had the personal experience of feeling entrapped by things we have said or done. We all have regrets about what we have not said or done. Now we can make things right. Prop. 3 safeguards the true meaning of marriage as understood by the Episcopal Church. Prop. 6 puts into effect the church’s teaching that everyone, regardless of present status or condition, has dignity, worth, and the potential to amend their ways.

Words really do matter. California voters have an opportunity to bring the language in the state constitution in line with their values and beliefs. On behalf of Grace Cathedral and our worshipping community, I encourage you to vote yes on Proposition 3 and Proposition 6.

Malcolm Clemens Young

Dean, Grace Cathedral,
San Francisco, CA