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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Rev. Dr. Nicole Kirk
July 20, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
For this very special service, we will stream Rev. Dr. Nicole Kirk’s sermon from our recent annual Unitarian Universalist General Assembly, which examines how our ancestry, heritage, and religious values have prepared us for the challenges and opportunities of our time.
Introit
REQUIEM
Eliza Gilkyson
The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Band; Brent Baldwin, director
Dedicated to the victims of the Hill Country floods
[MUSIC]
♪ Mother mary, full of grace, awaken
All our homes are gone, our loved ones taken
Taken by the sea
Mother mary, calm our fears, have mercy
Drowning in a sea of tears, have mercy
Hear our mournful plea
Our world has been shaken
We wander our homelands forsaken
♪ In the dark night of the soul
Bring some comfort to us all
Oh mother mary come and carry us in your embrace
That our sorrows may be faced
♪ Mary, fill the glass to overflowing
Illuminate the path where we are going
Have mercy on us all
In funeral fires burning
Each flame to your mystery returning
♪ In the dark night of the soul
Your shattered dreamers, make them whole
Oh mother mary find us where we’ve fallen out of grace
Lead us to a higher place
♪ In the dark night of the soul
Our broken hearts you can make whole
Oh mother mary come and carry us in your embrace
Let us see your gentle face, mary ♪
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 that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Anthem
LET IT BE
Paul Mccartney / John Lennon
The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Band; Bethany Ammon, voice; Brent Baldwin, guitar/direction; Rob Chase, bass; Jill Csekitz, drums; Mauricio Starosta, piano
[MUSIC]
♪ When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be, be
And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shinin’ until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music,
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Sermon
NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.
Volitile markets, a trade war, controversy over citizenship, Foreign interventions, businesses closing, economic turmoil, global uncertainty. 1815 was a pivotal year for the United States.
It was also an important time for the birth of American Unitarianism. The War of 1812 had ended in February of that year, a war between the youthful United States and Great Britain over trade, commerce, maritime rights, and the meaning of U.S. citizenship and territorial expansion.
With the ending of the war, William Ellory Channing, a liberal congregationalist and minister of the prominent Federal Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues anticipated a better if not calmer year. They were wrong.
A different kind of fight was gaining momentum. A fight not wage with cannon fire, and bayonets, but with convictions and ideas that would revolutionize American religious life forever and give a name to a growing body of religious liberals.
What had become known as the Unitarian Controversy had erupted in 1805 with the election of Henry Ware Sr. as the Halless Professor of Divinity at Harvard College, where and a growing number of congregational ministers were challenging core Calvinist doctrines, including original sin, the nature of salvation, the interpretation of the Bible, and the trinity, and many of their parishioners were embracing this emerging, a liberal theology. It was a quiet revolution that was never meant to be a revolution at all.
By 1807, the liberals held the majority of the faculty positions and the presidency of Harvard College and the conservative wing of the congregationalists, the ones who called themselves orthodox, meaning right thinking, responded forcefully. They issued critical pamphlets, launched periodicals, shunned liberal colleagues, and established their own theological school Andover Newton.
The Orthodox began calling the liberals Unitarian as an insult. This theological feud would ebb and flow until 1815, and that’s when Orthodox minister Jedidai Morse, spearheaded renewed attacks on liberal ministers.
He wanted to expose these ministers and their liberalism, separate them from their Orthodox colleagues and their congregations. In a calculated move. Orthodox ministers refused to exchange pulpits with their liberal colleagues. Jededia Morse also wrote a book entitled American Unitarianism. A book was an attempt to brand the liberals as heretics.
By associating them with an English form of Unitarianism, The intention of these efforts was to isolate the Liberals, and instead it consolidated their resistance. And so from his pulpit at Federal Street Church in Boston, we now know as Arlington Street Church. There you are. William Ellory Channing began answering these attacks publicly, emerging is a spokesperson of the liberal movement.
And let’s be clear, let’s be clear, he did not do this alone. He had lots of colleagues and family members and people in his life supporting him, including women, people of color, who often get left out of the story.
Then, in this very city of Baltimore, on May 5th, 1819, Channing delivered the ordination sermon of Jared Sparks at the newly gathered First Independent Church of Baltimore. The sermon that became known as Unitarian Christianity, embraced the label Unitarianism, and interpreted it as the understanding of the unity of God, not a trinity. And Jesus’s role is an important teacher that was subordinate to God. And in that sermon he laid out the basic tenets of what he called a pure Christianity, a pure and rational Christianity. It was a theological declaration of independence.
Even after the Baltimore sermon and embracing the label Unitarian and redefining it, even after Channing helped gather a church in New York City, even after the court decision in 1820 when that church property was awarded to many of the liberal leaders and congregations, the Unitarians resisted creating a new association, Or at least it seems like that.
Many of the liberals were not ready to fully separate themselves from the congregationalist body. It would take six more years before the liberals formally organized themselves into an association.
And yet, the liberals were organizing all along. They had created periodicals like the Monthly Anthology and the Christian Monitor. They had established clubs and ministerial organizations and associations like the Evangelical Missionary Society. A circle of Boston liberal ministers had joined together to hire ministers at large, including Joseph Tuckerman to serve the poor and those in need. That is community ministry, my friend.
And in May of 1820 Channing invited liberal ministers to meet at his church to develop an organization for mutual support. They called it the Berry Street Conference. We know it today is the Berry Street Essay.
Could you hear me? The younger generation of liberals still sought stronger connections. At the meeting of Anonymous Association, that was really the name, the Anonymous Association, an organization of liberal Boston ministers, young Unitarian ministers like Ezra Giles Gannett and Channing’s assistant minister, by the way, and also Henry Ware Jr., his father senior was the one back at the Unitarian Controversy time, they and others decided that they could not wait any longer, and they took it upon themselves to design an organization to support Unitarianism in New England and beyond.
And so in May of 1825, at the Berry Street Conference The American Unitarian Association was born. A constitution was adopted and a purpose that wanted to diffuse the knowledge and promote the interests of the liberal tradition of Unitarianism. They did not seek to hide Unitarianism. They sought to share and expand this practical and life-saving tradition. With this act, the separation between the Orthodox and the liberal strands of congregationalism was institutionalized. It was an act of hope. They were lovers of life. They were builders of institutions. They were seekers of truth and keepers of faith. They are our ancestors and we are their hope.
[MUSIC]
♪ Which now that all the morning star rises
And sings and sings who we are
Which now that all the morning star rises
And sings to the universe who we are
We are our grandmother’s wares
And we are our grandfather’s dreamers.
♪ We are the breath of our ancestors.
We are the spirit of God.
We are wonders of our mission.
We are wonders of time.
We are wonders of dust.
♪ We are wonders
Of great visions, of sisters, of mercies
And mothers of love, we are fathers of life
We are builders of nations, we are builders of truth
We are builders of faith, we are makers of peace
And wisdom of ages ♪
♪ We are
Our grandmothers’ prayers and we are
Our grandmothers’ dreams
We are the bread of our ancestors
We are the spirit of God
We are mothers of our witches and mothers of time
We are daughters of dust
And the sons of great vision, the sisters of mercy, the brothers of love.
We are lovers of life, and the builders of nations, the sisters of truth.
We are mothers of faith,
and the makers of peace,
and the wisdom of ages.
♪ We are
Our grandmothers’ prayers and we are
Our grandmothers’ dreams
We are the bread of our ancestors
We are the spirit of God
And each child that’s born
Sons of Christ and saints
Who we are
We are the bread of our ancestors
♪ Who we are ♪
We are the ancestors We are our grandparents prayers, and we are our grandparents dreams. We are the breath of our ancestors and we carry the spark of the divine within us. We carry the weight of unfinished promises and unrealized dreams. We are the ancestors of tomorrow.
And what kind of ancestors will we choose to be?
We gather in this moment of profound challenge when many of us feel worn out, frightened, angry, fragmented, heartbroken. What we hold dear, what we hold dear, freedom, justice, diversity, pluralism, equity, inclusion, reason, peace and love are facing alarming attacks. As individuals, as communities, as a nation, the weight of uncertainty and the erosion of freedom weighs heavily. And we carry other burdens with us. Family strife, a layoff, a break up, a bad diagnosis, a denial or erasure of who we are, friendships broken, loss and separation. And in this moment, volatile markets, a trade war, controversy over citizenship, foreign interventions, businesses closing, economic turmoil, and global uncertainty.
And we too face a rigid orthodoxy, and it’s called White Christian Nationalism, An orthodoxy that seeks to establish what our founders rejected, a theocracy that would silence the very freedom they fought to protect and couldn’t even fully imagine the impact of what they were saying. That foundation, the foundation what this nation was started from and this religious tradition is under attack. They’re trying to silence us.
We live in the times that Quaker activist Parker Palmer calls the tragic gap. The space where between the hard realities around us and what we know is possible. We can imagine what Martin Luther King Jr. called the Beloved Community. We can envision what writer James Baldwin demanded, a more humane, connected, and just world.
Our ancestors had dreams, and so do we.
Historian Barbara Ransby instructs us that change is possible. Change is possible, and transformation begins in our individual and collective imaginations where we look out, where we can already see and do the impossible, imagine something we have not yet seen. She tells us, Barbara Ransby tells us that revolution begins with a dream. And at the end, we must fight for it. We know the possibilities exist because we have experienced them in moments of profound connection and acts of justice that bends the arc towards love, although right now it feels like someone’s trying to pull it the other way, in communities that held space for the full humanity of every person.
And yet we also know the gaps. We know the gaps in our history and ourselves. As my beloved colleague Abhija Yamamachi reminds us we practice an aspirational faith that frequently, if not routinely, has not lived up to the fullness of what it preaches.
We are dreamers – awakening, it’s taking a long time to get fully awake. We are dreamers awakening to the hard work of making dreams real.
Bear with me for this next part. I think I could get through this.
This year has taught me something profound about the relationship between dreams and loss. Between what we inherit and what we leave behind. Six months ago, my husband, Frederick, died after 13 months of living with terminal cancer. Now, we had time before he died, time to speak of the past, time to reckon with the regrets and mistakes, time to recall the shared joy, time to dream of a future that would not include his physical presence, but we would continue to be shaped by his love and dreams. We dreamt that together. (He knew about this moment, by the way.)
I have been reflecting what it means to be alive in this moment, to survive the loss of a partner, to be more than 25 years in my Unitarian Universalist service as a minister, 13 years at Meadville Lombard Theological School, and more recently having the opportunity to serve my local congregation, All Souls Unitarian in Tulsa.
I’ve been thinking about how to reckon with this moment in my life and also what’s happening to us in this nation and how Unitarian Universalism is caught there in between.
How do we live into this moment when there is disappointment and broken dreams? How? How do we be a part of this movement that’s more than just surviving as a Unitarian Universalist.
My conversation with Frederick, I learned that grief and hope are not opposites. They are partners in the sacred work of remembering and imagining. When we grieve, we grieve because we have loved. When we dream, we dream because we have hope for the future.
What does it mean to be the people who inherit our ancestors’ legacies, both the legacies we know of and the legacies that have been silenced? What does it mean that they were both flawed and full of promise? And how do we carry these legacies forward when we ourselves are flawed and full of promise?
Our bicentennial for one part of our tradition, Unitarianism, calls us to reflect on the past. ALL of it. The celebrations, the leadership, the breakthroughs, and the mistakes, the failures, the places where the injustice prevailed. We must never forget where we have failed. We must never forget so that we can hold space to honor the grief, the loss, the missed opportunities, and to do something about it. We also hold tighter inheritance of this life-giving, saving, loving faith tradition, and even as we reflect on the mistakes, we still honor the leadership, the creativity, the adaptability, the imaginations, the possibilities of so many who came before us, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.
Let me know you’re here. Let me know you’re here. Yeah.
200 years from now, let alone 50 years from now at General Assembly, perhaps at Baltimore or the moon, or wherever it may be, what will they say about how we showed up in this moment? Because we will be the ancestors I hope they sing of.
The American Revolution did not fully liberate all Americans, but it did create the possibility of a future liberation movement. The Unitarian Revolution did not create a perfect faith, but it created the possibility of a faith that could evolve towards greater inclusion theologically, economically, socially, bodily.
Freedom isn’t the absence of restraint, it is the presence of love. It’s the courage, it’s the courage to remain open-hearted even after the loss, even after the brokenness, even after the shattered dreams, it’s the willingness to keep on dreaming even when we have lost what seems like our hopes. When we gather like this, bearing witness to life’s fragility, and it is fragile, life’s fragility and magnificence.
Freedom is never finished. We will be the ancestors that are going to be spoken of. Will we then be the ancestors who refuse to let democracy die on our watch? Will we be the ancestors who insisted that no single religion dictates the truth? The work of liberation is never done but each generation must take up the torch and carry it forward.
Remember, yes, remember in these tough times where rights are being denied and where the clouds of war are on the horizon, where fundamentalism is on the rise and your health and your loved one’s well-being is at risk.
Unitarian universalism must be both a rallying cry and a refuge. We offer sanctuary for the soul and summons to live our values of love and justice out in the world. But you know, we know, it in order to do this we have to have depth. We have to have the spirit. We have to have our humanness in connection with one another. We are a faith that doesn’t just believe in justice or talk about justice. We offer a moral framework and organized spirituality.
We have a courageous history, a history of engagement that’s so courageous and we must not neglect to remember to offer space for spiritual healing and growth. And if you don’t have that in your community right now and you recognize that, then you are part of what is going to be the people gathering to make that happen.
We need these spiritual roots or however you translate that word, those spiritual roots through our music, our poetry, our words, our meditations, our prayers, sermons and songs that feed us, feed our sparks of the divine, feed the spirit in our communities so that we can not only transform ourselves but then go out and transform the world.
We need that fuel, Yes, that fuel of healing, that fuel for growth. We need this because bell hooks reminds us that we need each other when she told us:
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. None of us do this alone.”
Looking back, looking back at what happened 200 years ago when Jedidia Morris tried to brand the Liberals as heretics and isolate them, something remarkable happened. Instead of scattering a fear like leaves before the storm, they planted seeds that would grow into strong sequoias. They did not retreat, they advanced and they consolidated their resistance. They organized. Channing’s Baltimore sermon became their battle cry:
“Speak your truth boldly, prove all things and hold fast, that which is good.”
They created periodicals to carry their new theology across the land. They established clubs where like-minded individuals could meet and create caring communities. They sent ministers at large into the city streets to serve the forgotten and the forsaken. They formed the Berry Street Conference, creating sanctuary for souls under siege.
They did not wait for permission.
They did not wait for permission, they decided they could not wait any longer and they took it upon themselves to create the American Unitarian Association. And when they accomplished this, when they accomplished this, they went from defense to offense, reaction to creation.
This pattern is written in our spiritual DNA. Feel it, know it, act on it, live live out of it. When they tried to, the orthodox, when they tried to silence our ancestors, they organized. When they tried to isolate us, they built bridges. When they attack your legitimacy, nurture your institutions that recognize your infinite worth. Communities where you can bring your entire beautiful self.
The same fire that burned in their hearts burns in ours today. They are all around us. We called them in this room this morning and online. The same courage that moved them to action calls to us now. We are not here by accident. We are the living legacy of those who refuse to be silent refused to be diminished, refused to surrender their liberation and the liberation of others.
The future is calling us now. We are the hope of the ancestors, the ones who came to Baltimore more than 200 years ago, the ones before them, the ones who came after. So many who have been there and helped us expand and understand how big our love is, how grand and large our freedom is.
In this moment, friends, don’t be afraid. Don’t stop organizing. Don’t stop dreaming. Don’t stop loving, friends. This faith matters. Your congregations, your communities matter. Your dreams matter, and the things we choose to do and say in the months and years ahead, matter.
Our ancestors, the spirit of life and freedom and most of all, I think, you know the word – LOVE. Let’s just say that together LOVE is holding us – is carrying us – is inspiring us – is putting our hope in us. Love is all around my friends – let’s not forget it. Can you feel it? Love is all around.
[MUSIC]
♪ All around, all around, everywhere I look your love is all around.
All around, all around, everywhere I look your love is all around.
Now you sing,
all around,
all around me,
all around you.
And where I look your love is all around.
It’s all around, all around,
All around,
all around.
Everywhere I look your love is all around.
Yes, I look your love is all around.
♪ If I look to the north and the south and the east and the west –
It’s all around,
it’s in you, it’s in me –
Let the nation sing,
let the nation sing –
Let the people shout,
let ’em tell,
let ’em hear you.
♪ Praise, praise, praise,
let your kingdom come
Oh, just hear it out,
Pour it out today,
the day to manifest,
Manifest your love
Let it grow and manifest,
Manifest your love
All around me,
all around you, all around us
♪ That’s My love, your love is all around
Let me hear you sing, yeah
All around
My love, your love is all around
Let’s sing, let the people shout
Let me hear you shout, yeah
Little
And the kingdom come for your spirit out
Pour it out, pour it out, pour it out, pour it out
And manifest
Manifest your love
In the beautiful day two
Manifest
Manifest
Manifest
Manifest your love
All around
All around, all around, all around, all around,
everywhere I look, your love is all around. ♪
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
As we return into our daily lives, let us remember that love is all around. Let us manifest that love all around.
May the congregation say amen and blessed be. Go in peace.
SERMON INDEX
Most sermons during the past 25 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
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
