The Power of a Good Story

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
December 28, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Storytelling is a powerful way to connect with one another, to understand ourselves and the world around us, and it just feels really good. Rev. Carrie explores the power of a good story.

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.

Call to Worship

A story communicates fear, hope, and anxiety, and because we can feel it, we get the moral not just as a concept, but as a teaching of our hearts. That’s the power of story. That’s why most of our faith traditions interpret themselves as stories, because they are teaching our hearts how to live as choiceful human beings capable of embracing hope over fear, self-worth and self-love over self-doubt, and love over isolation and alienation.

– Marshall Ganz

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

Matthew 2:1-12

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “in Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.”

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Sermon

I love a good story, don’t you? Stories are fun and entertaining. And because they are fun and entertaining, they can be used as powerful tools.

Tools to help us connect to other people, other cultures, and other ways of understanding the world Because they help us to understand things from a different perspective And can help us to strengthen or even develop our values.

That is because stories engage our brains in a completely different way. When we hear stories, our thinking shifts from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex.

Meaning stories make it possible for us to move out of the part of our brain that is mostly concerned about our survival, which tends to shrink our world into a part of our brain that is open and creative and empathetic.

From this place, when we hear or read about another being’s experience, our brains are flooded with feel-good hormones like oxytocin and dopamine. Leading us to connect to them, even if they are fictional.

Does anyone have a favorite fiction character? Me too.

Storytelling is such a powerful tool because it expands our understanding of what it can look like to be a person on this planet. Which is why some people find them dangerous Dangerous enough to try to ban them.

Stories are just that powerful!

One person who saw the power of storytelling to connect us and develop life-changing empathy was the Unitarian writer Rod Sterling. Rod Sterling had seen and experienced a lot of horrible things during World War 2. When he left the military, he turned to writing to help him process his anger and all he was feeling. That got him into writing for television. When Emmitt Till, a black boy, was killed by white supremacists, he wanted to write TV scripts about racism and the atrocity of what happened to Emmitt Till.

The TV producers and censors did not like that.

So eventually he figured out that the way to do what he wanted, write TV shows that would tell a powerful story and make people think about big issues in our society, was to make it science fiction.

This is how he created the TV show The Twilight Zone, a popular, powerful, and often still relevant TV show. The beauty of the Twilight Zone is that both the oppressed and oppressors liked to watch it even though there were important messages about oppression. Because it was a story, it helped people enter a creative, empathetic space to examine larger issues, like prejudice. Even if they didn’t realize that was what was happening.

Stories are also way to communicate many important messages in an entertaining way. It’s often easier to grasp a big ideas through a story than through a list of facts because a story can squish in a bunch of concepts while you are in an open space.

For instance, the story that Margaret just read for us about the Magi is a pretty good one It’s a little weird.

Maybe it left you wanting to hear more or just left you confused. Maybe it was so familiar that you kind of tuned it out.

What if I told you that that story would have been way more powerful to you if you were a Jewish person who lived 2000 years ago?

The story of the Magi, sometimes called the three kings or the three Wise Men, was in a book in the Bible called Matthew. This book was about Jesus, and it was probably written about 50ish years after Jesus died.

The primary purpose of the book was to share Jesus teaching and to make an argument that Jesus was the rightful king, the Son of God, and that his death meant something.

The audience for this book were the Jewish people who were following the path of Jesus or who might come to follow it.

When this book was written, these people had been run out of their homeland by Rome, the empire who had been oppressing them for a long time had destroyed their temple and all of Jerusalem, and enslaved many people and other horrible things.

So if you are a Jewish person in the first century and you heard or read Matthew’s account of the Magi it would have probably been very exciting.

First of all, you would have grown up knowing about the Parthian Empire, and the religion Zoroastrianism. And you would have known that the Parthian empire was bigger and more powerful than Rome at the time.

So when the story says that the Magi come from the east, those early readers or hearers would have understood that Matthew was trying to say that an empire even more powerful than the Roman Empire saw the importance of Jesus.

And not only that, they would have understood that the magi were Zoroastrian priest, which meant they knew the truth, because their religion was about receiving the truth. The truth, they told Herod, that the King of the Jews had been born.

These important details mean that for these ancient readers and now us, these aren’t just men who seem vaguely important coming to give strange gifts to a baby.

Rather, they are symbols that say this baby is as important as Matthew says he is and he is bigger than Rome, and really any empire.

This would have been a powerful message to people who had endured the pain of living under an empire. And is still powerful for many people living under empire today.

Secondly, in the story we learn that the Magi are coming because of a star. If you were living in the 1st century you would have known that these men were coming from a part of the world that had the best astronomers. – People who watched and tracked the night sky and could interpret what they saw – and they could do it better than anyone… even the Romans. Having the star be a part of the story would have probably said to them two things.

First, it would have made you think of the story of the prophecy of Balaam, In that story it is said that the star would signal that the Messiah or Christ had come.

The Messiah is the person many Jewish people had been and still are waiting to come and bring salvation and liberation. And Matthew believed and wanted others to believe that Jesus was that Messiah.

But not only that, Matthew wanted people to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Which was a title that the Roman Emperor Augusta had claimed for himself after seeing a comet. Augusta had a comet, but Jesus had a star, A star so powerful and steady that it could lead a group of important priest to his home….

And of course there are those weird gifts. I mean who brings myrrh to a baby. What is myrrh anyways?

If you lived in the ancient world those gifts would have signaled to you the whole of what Matthew was arguing.

Those ancient people would have associated Gold with Kingship Frankincense Gods and Goddess because that is what was burned in the temples.

And finally myrrh was to remind people of Jesus death. Myrrh is a very strong smelling oil that was used throughout that area on a body after someone had died.

There are tons and tons of thing that those early readers and hearers would have caught that we don’t catch, but when we give stories, especially stories that aren’t from our time or our culture the respect they deserve, we can get a greater insight than if we just insist on viewing things through our own lens. Because stories can expand our world.

When I try to look at this story through the lens of the people it was intended for I have a deeper understanding of the story and I understand why the story was told the way it was told. I don’t have to believe it as fact, but I do develop empathy for that ancient audience.

But we know that not all stories are meant for our good. For example, we know that the bible, where this story came from, has been used to do all sorts of harm.

The story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible was used my many Christian ministers to justify slavery in this country. It was used to justify colonization, misogyny, segregation, homophobia, and so much more.

Those things could be justified because there were already stories out there that said men were better than women, that Europeans were better than others, that Christians were better than others, that able-bodied people are better than disabled people and on and on.

These stories are old and have done so much damage and they are still around.

So what do we do when stories are such powerful tools AND can be used to do harm?

Well, I think we have to be wise when we listen to stories. For me this looks like holding my values close. Like the Equity value that we have in Unitarian Universalism, that says:

“every person has the right to flourish with inherent dignity and worthiness.”

So if I hear a story that pits one group against another, I can step back, apply my values to it, and see how it holds up.

Stories are such powerful tools that we need to make sure we use our wisdom when we hear them, and if something sits wrong with us, it’s a sign to investigate that.

It might be that you are picking up a lesson from a story that is harmful…. or it could be that you are having to evaluate your own values and beliefs.

Unlike those ancient people reading Matthew, we have access to so many stories… every single day. Often told in less than a minute.

We have to make sure that what we let in, helps us grow and live more deeply into our values.

Storytelling can expand our world by helping us to see outside our limited experience and understanding.

Stories allows us to literally let out brains relax making it easier for us to step into another person’s shoes, to experience things that we ourselves haven’t and might never will. It makes us more empathetic and more connected.

And when we listen with wisdom, it can help us to understand ourselves and our values in a deeper way. So this is your call to action:

Tell your stories
And ask each other for stories
Fill your world with stories from other people, other times, and other places So that you might be more connected
More empathetic
And have a more expansive life.

And make sure that whoever’s story you are listening to… even if they are the ones you tell yourself, that they are stories that are seeking the truth and beauty and wisdom of what it means to be a human on this planet.

Because storytelling is a powerful tool.

May we listen well.

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 leave this sacred time of community,
of fun,
of comfy cozy togetherness,
May you feel inspired to tell your story,
May you feel eager to hear others,
with wisdom,
and may the telling and the hearing connect us.

Go with a good story!

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