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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
September 20, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
We join together with love, joy, and a sense of belonging to express our commitment to our values and mission – building the dream of Beloved Community together. Join us on this special Sunday when we explore the real differences committing to that dream can make. On this Commitment Sunday, we live love and make our pledges for 2027 so that we may live that commitment into the future.
Welcome
Prelude: “Sonatina in C major Op 20F” (Kuhlau); Valeria Diaz, piano
Chalice Lighting
This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Call to Worship
Quote from Henry Nelson Weiman
Inevitably in our lives we commit ourselves to something, whether worthy or not. The direction and intensity of our loyalties give shape and meaning to our lives. Loyalties, commitments, covenants, the promises we make to one another, these are the things that tell us to what we belong. By giving so they tell us who we are.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Anthem
“We All Belong” (Dr. Dog) The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Band Brent Baldwin, vocals & guitar, Jill Csekitz, drums, Efrain Davila, bass, Valeria Diaz, piano
Stewardship Moment
As you’ve already heard, today is Commitment Sunday. Now is the time that we make our pledges to support the community that supports us with inspiring sermons, educational opportunities, chalice circles, children’s RE and more, great music and art, and opportunities for social action, as well as a safe place to be our authentic selves. All of this is critical at a time when we face rising dysfunction in so much of public and private life.
Our pledges provide about 87% of the funding for this church and its work. And probably you have pledged in the past. But we need to step up our game and increase our support. For the last three years, our pledge goal has remained the same, but inflation has not. It’s been about 3% every year. So, our budget has not provided ministers and staff with wages consistent with UUA recommendations.
So here’s our ask. Think about how this community supports you, your family, your friends, our neighbors, and make an increased pledge. Stretch just a little bit, look inside your heart, and make a generous pledge. There are several ways that you can do this. You can visit with us in Howson Hall at the stewardship table after service. On the pews, there are those little square pieces of paper that have a QR code that you can use to get to our pledge area. Or you can just go online at Austinuu.org and Click on the pledge button.
Again, thank you for your attention and thank you for being supporters, whether you are members or active participants, all of you, you are all very special and a part of our living love in this community. Thank you.
Reading
Quote from Tina DeYoe,
Director of Lifespan Religious Exploration,
Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, NMEvery act of kindness, generosity, or love overflows its original bounds. Our acts of kindness, generosity, and love multiply. Stewardship is a call to transformation.
Stewardship is an invitation to do new things in relationship with people in this community and beyond our walls. Generously giving of our time, talents, and treasure to this church community is a radical act of hope that has ripple effects that continue to multiply in people’s lives and in the world. We give because we are invested in the creation of a truly Beloved Community for all.
Centering
Music for Meditation: “Together We Can Soar” (Brent Baldwin) The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Band
Sermon
LIVING LOVE-BUILDING OUR DREAM TOGETHER
Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Raise your hand if you just love talking about money.
All right now give me a hearty “Amen” if you love being asked to give away your money.
Any takers on really loving having to ask other people to give away their money? if so, sing hallelujah.
Well, at this time every year we have our annual stewardship campaign, our pledge drive, when we have to do all three of those and more.
We have to talk about money because we have to come to you the people that make up this religious community, this church, and ask you to pledge some of yours to the church in the next year so that together we can all commit to continuing to live out that mission we say every Sunday.
And to make matters even worse, the moment, all those many years ago now, when our universalist ancestors declared that God would never condemn anyone to hell, the minute they removed that threat, our fundraising fell through the floor.
OK, I don’t actually have any historical evidence for that, but it does seem intuitive that the threat of hell might provide a pretty darn strong incentive for giving to churches that still hold that theology of eternal fire and damnation.
And yet, we would seem an awfully disingenuous faith, as would I as minister, if I were to bring back a theology of hell only during the pledge drive.
So on this, our commitment Sunday that kicks off our drive, I am charged with providing you with a Unitarian Universalist theology for why supporting your church matters spiritually.
If you are visiting with us today, I hope hearing all of this may help illustrate a little more about the core values of our faith and this church.
And since we Unitarian Universalists respect and learn from the wisdom of the world’s faith traditions, we could start by looking at the very telling fact that most all of them embrace generosity as a spiritual practice and value.
The Christian bible states “You shall open your hand to your neighbor, to the needy and to the poor” and simply, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”, connecting spiritual generosity with loving our neighbors and doing for others.
Judaism embraces the concept of tzedakah, which is often translated as charity but actually means something more like justice through righteous giving.
Zoroastrianism generally understands generosity as part of humanity’s responsibility for acting with truth and righteousness toward others.
Sikhism states, “One who shares what he has with others, receives the fruits of his generosity.”
The Quran in Islam says, “The example of those who spend their wealth in the way of Allah is like a seed which grows seven ears of corn; in every ear are a hundred grains.”
Hinduism holds generosity as a fundamental spiritual practice. And in fact, similar concepts around spiritual generosity arise in buddhism, jainism, the Bahai faith, Taoism, Confucianism and many more spiritual traditions throughout the world.
In common among them, is that generosity is rarely presented simply as giving away things. It is more often about letting go of one’s material attachments, supporting the dignity of others, cultivating compassion, understanding that our own well-being is connected to that of the larger community and our world.
And that relates so strongly to our Unitarian Universalist understanding that we are inextricably held within a sacred, interdependent, web of all existence, and thus our generosity is integral to our own sense of wholeness within that interdependent web.
So much so, that our larger Unitarian Universalist faith has adopted generosity as one of our core religious values, describing it like this, quote:
“We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.”
And so, I think when folks here at First Unitarian Universalist pledge your generous support toward the church and the many different ways it makes it possible for us, together, to nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice, we are engaging in the spiritual practice of nurturing and valuing that interdependent web of which we are a part and upon which we depend.
We are embodying that Unitarian Universalist theological value of generosity.
We are living love and building our dreams of Beloved Community.
OK, now that I have, hopefully, outlined a Unitarian Universalist-centric theology for it, please bear with me while 1 have to talk about money just for a bit.
So that we can continue to fulfill our mission as a religious community, keep living love and building our dreams together, we have had to raise our pledge goal for 2027 by $60,000 over last time, from $825,000 to $885,000.
That’s the first time we have raised it in three years, and it is still by an amount lower than the rate of inflation.
Here is the need for that increase.
Here’s why the church needs your support to meet that $885,000 pledge goal for 2027.
Expenses in Austin continue to rise, so for several previous years, we have run budget deficits. We’ve funded expenses that were growing faster than our projected revenue by drawing down our savings and reserves.
That’s not sustainable. Those reserves will eventually run out.
Beginning in 2027, we must begin the spiritual discipline of running a balanced budget when at all possible.
We also have not been able to pay our church staff at the Unitarian Universalist Association (or UUA) recommended levels for the past few years, and we have further reduced personnel costs through attrition by not replacing some staff positions when the folks who were in them left our employment.
This is also not sustainable.
The UUA establishes its salary recommendations by conducting wage and living expenses surveys in various regions throughout the country. They have recently found that what it costs to live in Austin is more similar to cities of a similar size on the East coast and grouped us as if we were in that region as far as salary needs.
To truly live our values, we must pay our staff fair, livable wages and support enough staff positions that the work of fully carrying our our mission is possible.
Our 2027 budget pays at least the minimum UUA recommended salary for every staff member, and we begin a multiyear year plan to move us toward fully staffing the church.
Well, finally, as our property ages (along with some its occupants) costs for repair and upkeep of our building and grounds, as well as for property and liability insurance have outpaced our ability to budget for them.
To sustain our church property, we must begin to more fully fund these needs starting in 2027.
An increase of $60,000 is a challenging goal, I know. I hope that this has helped explain the need for it.
And I also know this church is up to it. I know this church can meet the challenge because I know how committed this community is to this church.
After all, only a few years ago, we were told that having a capital campaign to pay off a more than one million dollar construction loan the church held at the time would never work because we were told, “people won’t give to pay off debt.”
Well, we did! You did!
We paid off that loan AND met our stewardship goal in the very same year because this religious community is that committed to living love and building our dreams together!
And that’s actually little wonder. We’re committed to it because we can see what that commitment does in our lives, in our communities, and in our world.
Just a few examples…
Our extremely active social action groups are showing up in our world, working for justice, battling the climate crisis, joining in solidarity with groups like Austin Sanctuary network, Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry, Austin Mutual Aid and so many more.
Your commitment this year provided the resources for Rev. Carrie to go to Minnesota to join in faith witness and opposition to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement invasion and occupation that was going on there, as well as to Newark to join with other faith leaders to demand the closure of the Delaney Immigration Detention center there.
From LGBTQ rights, to immigrant justice, to antiracism, to registering people to vote, to getting out the vote, to protecting the vote, to climate justice, to reproductive rights, to declaring ourselves one of the “apartheid free churches”, to providing community care bags, winter coats, supporting food banks and other forms of aid, and so much more, we are showing up, doing justice in our world.
And next year, when the Texas State Legislature reconvenes, because of your commitment, we will be there. We will show up.
And no matter what legislative horrors they attempt, we will demand public policy that respects human rights and dignity – that reflects the compassion and generosity toward others that all the world’s religions embrace.
Every Sunday, our attendance at worship has been up and our number of repeat visitors grows, as folks, at least in part, seek spiritual refuge from a world around us that seems to have gone berserk at times, hasn’t it?
I can’t tell you how often someone comes up to me in the receiving line after the service and tells me that they came to First UU because they saw how we are living our values in the world or they encountered us at an event or rally for justice. They routinely tell me something along the lines of, “I am so glad ya’ll are here and that I found you.”
Enrollment in our small group ministries like Chalice Circles and our spirituality groups like Monday Meditation is simply overflowing with literally several hundred folks participating. And I routinely have folks tell me about having suffered the loss of a loved one or faced other daunting spiritual challenges in their life and then look at me and say something like, “I don’t know how I would have made it through these last few months without my group here at the church.”
Our music (and arts programs such as our gallery) are also nourishing our souls and those of many others!
In fact, other churches sometimes snag our Sunday online videos for their own musical needs! I’ve asked Brent to check on collecting royalties for that.
Our religious education programs are growing and expanding as people seek ways to further explore their religious values and a place for their children to do so.
Just last Sunday, we opened up the class on healthy conflict, and it filled up in two days. We added a few more slots and those filled the very next day.
We are fulfilling a hunger for spiritual learning and nourishment.
OK, one more example, and then I’ll stop extolling the wonders of this religious community, I promise.
For now.
Our First UU Cares Team is providing so many forms of pastoral support to dozens upon dozens of people in this church, including robust grief and care giver peer support groups.
Again, I can’t tell you how often someone tells me how much it has meant to them, what a real difference it has made, that someone from the church reached out – how much it helped them through a time of sorrow or distress.
Well these are only just a few of the ways in which your commitment to supporting this church makes real differences in real people’s lives, both within these church walls and beyond them.
There are so many more that I couldn’t possibly mention them all today.
So, if I’ve left out one of your favorites, please feel free to duly chastise me in the receiving line after the service.
And then go make your pledge if you haven’t already done so.
On this commitment Sunday, thank you to so many of you who have already committed so much to this church.
Let us continue to engage together in our Unitarian Universalist theology of generosity.
Commit together to living love.
Commit together to building our dreams.
Commit together to a faith that has no need for a theology of hell because our theology keeps us busy working toward manifesting the divine, the Beloved Community in this world, right here, right now.
Go pledge. Amen.
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.
Benediction
Now as we go out into our world today, let us carry our commitment forward. Our commitment to all this church makes possible.
Community.
Transformation.
Spiritual Nourishment.
Justice.
Building the Beloved Community.
The manifestation of fierce love in our lives and in our world.
May we commit to building this dream together.
May the congregation say, “Amen”, and, “blessed be”.
I love you fiercely. Go in peace
Most sermons during the past 26 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.
Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776
