September 26, 2021: Saint Michael and All Angels

[Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] praise the lord [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] blessed be the one holy and living to god forever [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] jesus christ [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh my god [Music] may god be with you let us pray everlasting god you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals mercifully grant that as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth through jesus christ our lord who lives and reigns with you and the holy spirit one god for ever and ever a reading from the book of genesis jacob left beersheba and went towards haran he came to a certain place and stayed there for the night because the sun had set taking one of the stones of the place he put it under his head and lay down in that place and he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth the top of it reaching to heaven and the angels of god were ascending and descending on it and the lord stood beside him and said i am the lord the god of abraham your father and the god of isaac the land on which you lie i will give to you unto your offspring and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west to the east and to the north and to the south and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring know that i am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land and i will not leave you until i have done what i have promised you then jacob woke from his sleep and said surely the lord is in this place and i did not know it he was afraid and said how awesome is this place this is none other than the house of god and this is the gate of heaven the word of the lord [Music] oh my [Music] soul thy lord has set up us and the sovereignty of the lord [Music] of god's word bless the lord for you holy host your [Music] holy bless the lord all you works of god give our places of god bless the lord r [Music] oh my soul a reading from the revelation to john war broke out in heaven michael and his angels fought against the dragon the dragon and the angels fought back but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven the great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and satan the deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him then i heard a loud voice in heaven proclaiming now have come the salvation and the power in the kingdom of our god in the authority of his messiah for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our god for they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony that they did not cling to life even in the face of death rejoice then you heavens and those who dwell in them but woe to the earth and the sea for the devil has come down to you with great wrath because he knows that his time is short the word of the lord [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] ya [Music] praise our lord [Music] for your angels [Music] the holy gospel of our savior jesus christ according to john [Music] when jesus saw nathanael coming toward him he said of him here is truly an israelite in whom there is no deceit nathanael asked him where did you get to know me jesus answered i saw you under the fig tree before philip called you nathanael replied rabbi you are the son of god you are the king of israel jesus answered do you believe because i told you that i saw you under the fig tree you will see greater things than these and he said to him very truly i tell you you will see heaven opened and the angels of god ascending and descending upon the son of man the gospel of the lord [Music] [Applause] i speak to you in the name of god father son and holy spirit good morning today we celebrate the feast of saint michael and all angels one of the patronal one of the central feasts of grace cathedral it is not a central feast for the whole episcopal church it is uh on the calendar but no one makes as much of it i think as we do and uh there's there's a historical reason for that which is not important today maybe not important at all but the point of today is about the ministry of angels and specifically a clear signal between humanity and the earth and god and a clear signal between god humanity and the earth and what keeps that from being true the prevention of the clear signal so that's what we'll explore today the the first lesson from the hebrew scriptures which ellen read so beautifully and the gospel which was proclaimed are both about the clear signal there is a camp an episcopal church and camps center in texas outside of houston called camp allen and the house of bishops of the episcopal church habitually meets there every other year when we're not in the times we're in and they are not kind to certain carriers uh telephone carriers and so i won't name which ones work there and which ones don't because this is not a commercial but let me say there are many bishops who are walking to the one spot on the campus that it works and they're holding their phones up and trying to get these urgent messages back from their diocese or to their diocese and it's quite hysterical if you back off and watch evidence if you're not the person wanting to get an urgent message in or out now jacob uh is not it's an interesting technology to put a stone under your head and go to sleep and get a clear signal to god but what what we have learned with technology is anything that works and so this is what jacob is doing and in fact uh incubating dreams in various ancient traditions use the idea of an uncomfortable place to sleep in order to wake you up periodically through the night so that you remember your dreams you know that when you wake up that's the dream you remember often and so in england for instance at sacred wells people sleep on stone in order to interrupt their sleep so they remember the dreams that the gods or god gives them so this is what jacob is doing he's trying to get a clear signal and it works he sees this remarkable vision a dream vision of a ladder between the earth and heaven and on that lander ladder he sees angels ascending and descending that is since angel means messenger they are carrying his hopes and prayers to god and god is answering clearly and beautifully to jacob the message is unimpeded and it flows from earth to heaven from jacob to heaven and from god to jacob god to humanity god to the earth and this is reprised by jesus in the gospel lesson and there we hear jesus saying that on the son of man that is a way to say on the child of humanity himself who is a representative of all of us that this is the latter now and the angels are ascending and descending on on jesus so he's taking this ancient story of jacob and moving it in and helping us understand his own role as the one who gives us a clear channel a clear message a clear signal between us and that us includes all of life and god and between god and all of us all our relations but why doesn't that work all the time what is the impediment that prevents us from knowing the message of god to us and feeling that our prayers do not rise to god can i say rise to god go to god and that that is the story that art read to us from the book of revelation the incredible book of the apocalypse uh unlike grace cathedral's love of saint michael and all angels the episcopal church has a very cautious relationship with the book of revelation we don't read it very often in in church and um and i would dare say in your private devotions that it's probably not your go-to book of the bible it's an extraordinary book however it's an extraordinary book and to move into it let me say that it is um like calypso music well no really the word apocalypse means to unveil and calypso thus means to veil and calypso music the caribbean music of calypso is veiled music why because there were slave owners and there were slaves and these are political messages veiled in fun danceable music but the apocalypse is the unveiling showing us what the truth is and in the same way that calypso music was deeply political in that people's lives depended on not being exposed to slave owners so was the book of the revelation the book of the apocalypse needing to be veiled from whom from the roman empire this great power that was inimicable to the way the young christian movement of that that we call christianity now it was veiled for their protection for the protection of those who wrote the letter and the protection of those who read the letter letter the protection of those who followed the resurrected jesus and so it's important to know that this is the setting and this is uh this is what this book in a way is all about is the vindication of those who follow god in the ways of justice and peace and truth but more to the point there's a dragon and that dragon is identified as that ancient serpent that primordial serpent that original serpent that is the one in the garden so it's both a dragon and that first deceiver of humanity the one who leads the whole accumula the acumene the whole world astray so there's some things about dragons that we need to kind of hold together and grasp dragons joseph campbell said in that wonderful series where he was interviewed by bill moyers there are two kinds of dragons there's the dragons of the east and the dragons of the west and we'll leave aside the dragons of the east like the history of why we like st michael and all angels here it's not important today but the dragons of the west campbell said represent human greed selfishness why because as he said they hoard things they cannot use they hoard virgins and treasure think of smaug in the hobbit and his great self as drawn by tolkien actually circled around a glittering pile of treasure you can see chalices and goblets and plate and jewels and and money gold and silver and bronze all glittering enfolded by smaug's great body with a little steam coming out of his nostrils and one eye cocked to make sure that he sees anyone coming in to get his treasure which he cannot spend which he has no use for except that he wants it now what campbell does not say in his wonderful exposition of this is what is that treasure what is it that the dragon is hoarding and holding away what is so precious well the text from the book of revelation today says that this dragon is diablos the devil and satan and that he accuses the believers day and night before god there's a problem with that idea would god be taken in by this dragon would god be fooled about you about me about the earth by this dragon no what is being said here is that is we who are fooled by the dragon the dragon is giving you and me our consciousness a message of our unworthiness to hear god's message to us and to speak to god all the concerns of our hearts to god that this is not something we should do or could do because of our unworthiness whatever we think that is so this is a veiling of our own hearts my siblings and it is that which is being removed not the veil on god's face but the veil on our consciousness that keeps us from seeing the treasure and that treasure is in fact the essential and eternal message of god which is meant to be clearly given and clearly received by humanity and by all the earth and by you and by me it is the message that jesus received so clearly when he understood that god was his his parent his beloved parent papa mama when he understood that when he says in the gospel the father and i are one that is a message of of a clear message being received and given by jesus he is at one with god there is no distance between him and god and so he becomes that conduit that ladder upon which the angels ascend and descend for you and for me and for the earth and what was his message after his baptism he's driven into the wilderness and in the wilderness he's tempted by the same dragon and then he begins his ministry impelled by the holy spirit that visited him in his baptism impelled by the same spirit that drove him into the wilderness impelled by that spirit into the galilee where he went around having one message the kingdom of heaven has come near you and is among you and that is of course as you know i say over and over the beloved community and here is the message at the center of that which is god loves you just that that is the clear message signal that is coursing down through jesus to you to me and to all the earth that is impeded by our own sense of unworthiness that jesus came to take away the book of the apocalypse does not take place at the end of time it sounds like that in this story but it is out of time it is all times this message has been given to you in christ jesus it is eternal it is immutable it cannot be taken away from you it is as clear as the light of day god is overflowing love and that love is meant for you let us confess our faith in the words of nicene creed we believe in one god the father the almighty maker of heaven and earth of all that is seen and unseen we believe in one lord jesus christ the only son of god eternally begotten of the father god from god light from light true god from true god begotten not made of one being with the father through him all things were made for us and for our salvation he came down from heaven by the power of the holy spirit he became incarnate from the virgin mary and was made human for our sake he was crucified under pontius pilate he suffered death and was buried on the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the father he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and is we believe in the holy spirit the lord the giver of life who proceeds from the father and the son with the father and the son she is worshiped and glorified she has spoken through the prophets we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church we acknowledge when baptism for the forgiveness of sins we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come amen let us pray to god whom angels and mortals serve loving god you made us a kingdom of priests to serve as the angels minister to you in heaven strengthen your church to serve you here on earth we pray by the intercession of saint michael guardian and protector of the church continue to guide and inspire michael our presiding bishop mark our bishop and malcolm ardene inspire all in this cathedral community to join them as messengers of the good news of reconciliation we pray the angels greeted the birth of your son singing glory to god and peace on earth move the leaders of nations towards justice and lasting peace we pray you give your angels charge over those who trust in you to guard them in all their ways protect those who are fleeing violence instability and climate disaster bring healing and wholeness to those who suffer any ailment of body mind or spirit we pray may flights of angels sing to their rest all who have died especially valerie vaughn ray lance john august swanson and those who died in the joplin montana amtrak crash and those whose anniversaries of death we remember today fernando and santibanyas haldor solom may they be escorted by the angels to the bosom of abraham we pray holy god giver of life breathe a spirit of healing over the whole earth make us people and agents of wholeness and anoint all in need with the oils of strength and health to the praise of your glorious name we pray the peace of christ be always with you and all those over here please greet each other in the name of our risen savior so welcome to grace cathedral those of you who are visiting uh those of us who are here more regularly and make this our spiritual home greet you and welcome you we are glad you are here we look forward to finding ways to welcome you more deeply into the life of this community if you are making your home in this area and and wish to be part of this beautiful wonderful community we invite you to stay after the service there's coffee hour and other things to enjoy on the plaza which is to my left services at grace cathedral are held six days a week please join us every day every week weekday on for online morning prayer i never thought i would see a revival of morning prayer in the episcopal church but um one of the gifts that the pandemic has brought us amid all the suffering and loss unmistakable undeniable is that there's been quite a revival of morning and evening prayer all over the church and it's the online presence that has allowed that to be such a flourishing so we invite you to join uh equally wednesday evenings for the vine it's a beautiful service um rather different than this but uh of its own beauty and lots of depth and joy and wonderful music and preaching and seeing some celebration so please join us for the vine at thursdays for even song we were we i installed our newest archdeacon at evensong uh two thursdays ago glorious to have the men and boys choir back in full force and it is one of the most beautiful events musically in the city on a regular basis and we invite you to it it is also a deep deeply meaningful worship service and sundays our services are at 11 8 30 11 and 6. i'm asked to remind you that um the grace contingent on saturday 10-2 for the women's march we'll we'll be gathering that is a great thing we've been doing for years now and watch for details they're coming normally for many many years we've had banners on the two towers starting today and then running through the next week which is the october the fourth is the official feast of saint francis of assisi truly a patron of grace cathedral of san francisco and the diocese of california those two bookends if you will those two tower banners are marking two great celebrations at grace cathedral i'm always here for st michael and all angels i'm never here for saint francis day much to my sadness i'm always somewhere else but uh next sunday is our observance at grace cathedral of the feast of saint francis um there you're encouraged to bring your pet so i just wonder about the diversity of what will respond to that [Laughter] at one of our congregations in berkeley a whole hive of bees was brought as well as chickens the dogs had interest in the chickens and um you know there was a lot of anxiety in the non-human participants i'm not sure how blessed they felt but we were all there and i know that this is a long and beautiful tradition here at grace cathedral i encourage you to come and to to bring those companions of yours from the non-human realm and they'll have the blessing of the animals outdoors on the plaza and finally ambient grace is on the labyrinth on saturday october the second for the first in-person installment of ambient grace featuring artist and dj kerry morrison i know that will be beautiful walk in love as christ loved us and gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to god foreign [Music] lord flesh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] is [Music] you let me say before the canon of the mass that um i neglected i didn't turn the page and there is a stewardship um statement that will be made and um that's so important our care for each other for the fabric of this building and the campus for all the ministries that come forth from grace cathedral so just before the final blessing we'll have that um stewardship statement thank you the lord be with you lift up your hearts let us give thanks to the lord our god we praise you and we bless you holy and gracious god source of life abundant from before time you made ready the creation your spirit moved over the deep and brought all things into being sun moon and stars earth winds and waters and every living thing you made us in your own image and taught us to walk in your ways but we rebelled against you and wandered far away and yet as a mother cares for her children you would not forget us time and again you called us to live in the fullness of your love and so this day we join with saints and angels in the chorus of praise that rings through eternity lifting our voices to magnify you as we sing [Music] [Laughter] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] in your name oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] glory and honor and praise to you holy and living god to deliver us from the power of sin and death and to reveal the riches of your grace you looked with favor upon mary your willing servant that she might conceive and bear a son jesus the holy child of god living among us jesus loved us he broke bread with outcasts and sinners healed the sick and proclaimed good news to the poor he yearned to draw all the world to himself yet we were heedless of his call to walk in love then the time came for him to complete upon the cross the sacrifice of his life and to be glorified by you on the night before he died for us jesus was at table with his friends he took bread gave thanks to you broke it and gave it to them and said take eat this is my body which is given for you do this for the remembrance of me as supper was ending jesus took the cup of wine again he gave thanks to you gave it to them and said drink this all of you this is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins whenever you drink it do this for the remembrance of me now gathered at your table o god of all creation and remembering christ crucified and risen who was and is and is to come we offer to you our gifts of bread and wine and ourselves a living sacrifice pour out your spirit upon these gifts that they may be the body and blood of christ breathe your spirit over the whole earth and make us your new creation the body of christ given for the world you have made in the fullness of time bring us with saint michael and all angels with saint francis and saint claire and all your saints from every tribe and language and people and nation to feast at the banquet prepared from the foundation of the world through christ and with christ and in christ in the unity of the holy spirit to you be honor glory and praise forever and ever and and now as our savior christ has taught us we are bold to say [Music] [Applause] [Music] thy kingdom come thy will be [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] us against us and lead us [Music] glory [Music] forever [Music] oh [Music] taste and see that god is good [Music] oh [Music] [Music] communion today will be distributed in one kind that is in the bread only there will be four stations at the front of the altar rails the ushers will guide you forward should you want gluten-free wafers they will be in the center and as you come forward to receive please keep your mask on and open your hands to receive the host and when it is placed in your hands simply say amen return to your seat lower your mask and eat there and thus we keep each other we continue to keep each other safe the gifts of god for the people of god take them in remembrance that christ died for you and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving oh [Applause] [Music] um [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] through [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] please stand let us pray loving god we give you thanks for restoring us in your image and nourishing us with spiritual food in the sabbath for christ's body and blood now from the spirit the people be forgiveness to the world [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] blessings [Music] so science so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] we're trying this again please be seated before the final blessing i'd like to invite phoebe campbell to come forward and say some much anticipated words about stewardship okay i'll make this quick um my name is phoebe campbell and i'm actually relatively new to grace as my husband tom and i only moved to san francisco at the beginning of 2019 after living for numerous decades in new york city so when i first came here i was had a lot of trepidation about moving to a new city and how i would fit in and i knew that a church home was going to be key connecting to this new familiar unfamiliar city but i pictured myself in the pews of a small quaint neighborhood church on some street corner with like 50 or 60 parishioners where everyone knew my name kind of like cheers but with a communion rail instead of a bar and i'd heard good things about grace but i knew unequivocally this was not where i belonged maybe at christmas eve or for a concert but a cathedral was like this big place and it's really um enormous and impersonal it wasn't an everyday church so i set up church shopping like goldilocks and nothing was just right so one sunday i thought oh why not i just wandered into grace and to my surprise i was immediately drawn to the space i mean the labyrinth and the art installations and i'm like a real snob about sermons and choirs and of course those are both sublime um so then i wandered over to coffee hour and i had that clench in your stomach of like social anxiety and i thought i'd be standing there clutching my tepid coffee and no one would talk to me and on the contrary several people came up and we had really meaningful good conversations and looking at the website i saw there were all of these different ministries that i could become involved in so surprisingly grace it turned out to be just right so here i am two years on from knowing for absolute certain i was not coming to grace and it's integral to my life and i think how my faith has really evolved and deepened and for that i have my um peers and and and friends that i've made in the different adult education classes efm the new begin fellowship and sacred ground and speaking of sacred ground for me faith and justice have always been inextricable and there's something about grace and this opportunity to participate in both advocacy and um action towards justice in community has been terrific i'm really honored to support parish life through my role on the congregation council but most of all i feel like i'm part of this inclusive wonderful robust community of people from so many backgrounds and points of view so in thinking about what i was going to say this morning about why it is that i pledged it occurred to me there's kind of a miracle that happens at grace and it's not by accident it's because of all of the amazing people you know the clergy the staff the speakers the artists the obviously the congregation and it's the sort of constellation of of of amazing people here but on the other hand you know you look up this is really an imposing building and like i don't i don't know everybody and i think i could come here for 20 years and not know everybody i consider myself involved but then after hearing how many services there are in a week i had no idea you know there's just so much i haven't participated in whether it's time or frankly because of interest and life stage so that made me think about the hundreds of others who experience grace in ways that are equally as profound and personal and meaningful to them but they're entirely different to me and they might go to these different services or participate in different ministries everyone comes with their own calling and their own reasons but collectively we're this beating heart of a faith community and then this is where the miracle happens that is simultaneously intimate and expansive so in other words when i'm pledging i'm supporting what's important to me of course but i'm supporting what's important to you and if you join me in pledging and we hope you do and i just have to stress when you see all of the spreadsheets when you're on the stewardship committee you see that at any level it's important because collectively it all comes together to be enough to support this amazing place and what you're doing is you're supporting many more people in being able to share what we're so blessed to have found and you know people that we may never meet or have any interest with and that's terrific and i also think it's so in keeping with god's own welcoming intimate yet expansive spirit so thank you [Applause] well that was completely worth waiting for [Music] it's as if we planned it and also your gifts support that little episcopal church on the corner as well this is the cathedral church of the diocese of california the 77 congregations 11 institutions do in fact depend on the central ministry of our cathedral we all look to the cathedral and the cathedral is our home for the whole diocese we come here in a few weeks for the diocesan convention at which you'll be represented as well by your own delegates and your clergy uh so phoebe you're exactly right and it's good that this is just right for you and you have a very big role we people at the cathedral in the support the spiritual support and in other ways material support of this whole beautiful community of the bay area episcopal church please stand our help is in the name of the lord blessed be the name of the lord may the angels of god watch over you may mary and all the saints pray for you and the blessing of god the source of all being the incarnate word and the holy spirit be with you now and evermore let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the spirit thanks be to god [Music] you [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Grace Cathedral San Francisco

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Length: 93min 7sec (5587 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021