Archive: Garrison gives the sermon at Grace Cathedral

I was in New York on September 11, 2001, on a book tour, did a reading in Union Square on the 10th, and the next morning the world came crashing down. I was in an apartment on Riverside Drive and heard a plane flying down the Hudson River, very low, and a few minutes later, the news came. The tour was canceled for a week, then resumed. I’d accepted an invitation to give the homily at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on Sunday the 23rd and this was the text. (The Scripture reading that morning was the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16.)

I grew up among the Sanctified Brethren, which you can tell because every so often words like “vouchsafe” spring to my lips, or “eschew” or “propitiation” or “Mammon,” which here is translated as “dishonest wealth.” To me, it was just Mammon. The parable of the unjust steward was not a favorite parable among us Brethren, not like the prodigal son or the good Samaritan. We believed in the literal interpretation of Scripture and enjoyed disputations…