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Rev. Chris Jimmerson & Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
September 6, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
This Sunday we begin the new church year with our annual Water Communion Service. During this beloved service, we will engage in a ritual blending of our waters to remind us of our shared faith tradition.
Welcome
“River Flows in You” (Yiruma) – 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
WE GATHER HERE AS INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE
Barbara Hamilton-HolwayWe gather here as individual people:
young and old;
Cis, trans, and those beyond the binary;
temporarily able and disabled;
gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight people,
all the colors of the human race;
theist, atheist, agnostic;
Christian, Buddhist, feminist, humanist.We gather here as a community of people who are more than categories.
We gather here each ministering to the other, meeting one another’s strength, encouraging wholeness.
We give thanks for this extraordinary blessing-the gathering together of separate, unique individuals as one whole, one body, our church.
Here may our minds stretch, our hearts open, our spirits deepen.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Anthem
“Black Muddy River” (Hunter/Garcia) – The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Band; Brent Baldwin, voice & guitar; Jill Csekitz, drums; Valeria Diaz, piano; Angel Roman, bass guitar
Time for all ages
THE FIRST WATER COMMUNION
Sol CornellNOTE: This is a AI generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.Today we have a story. about a woman named Lucille Shuck Longview, and she was a Unitarian Universalist. Now our story begins in 1975, which despite what y’all might think is not that long ago, okay?
Now in 1975, Lucille went to this big important event called a United Nations Assembly, and she met a lot of cool people there, and they talked about lots of very important things. Did you know, said one person to Lucille, that the Unitarian Universalist principles only talk about mankind, and they don’t actually mention women at all? Strange,
Lucille thought. That doesn’t sound very fair. Ah, someone else chimed in, and the principles say nothing about Mother Earth either, and how we rely on her as every other creature does.
Lucille was shocked. This religious community she had always thought to be so inclusive seemed to have forgotten about a good half of the world’s population. Now, unfortunately, this was not uncommon at the time. Most other religions were about the same, and the wider community beyond was no better.
Lucille thought to herself, I can do something about this. So when she got home from the assembly, she began to make some calls. She called her friends, her community, even strangers, and she told them about the injustice she had found.
When she had enough people standing beside her, they all called up the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. They told him, excuse me, sir, it’s time we get serious about women’s equality in Unitarian Universalism. He agreed. and he asked lucille if she wanted to create the very first UU service led entirely by women.
Lucille said yes and so she got together with her friend Carolyn Mcdade. They created a new service that they called Coming Home Like Rivers to the Sea, and it was a very special service.
Now, just like we do today, Lucille and Carolyn asked all of the women participating to bring some water from far and wide, water from different rivers and lakes, oceans, and rainfalls.
On the day of the service, everyone brought their water and poured it into a great big clay bowl.
Lucille looked into this bowl of water, their combined energy, and then out at the crowd. Lucille said,
“Today we’ve come together as rivers do, from near and far, all to join the sea. Today, we create something new, something that calls women to strength, action, and expression, rather than to be quiet and passive and pretty. I wish for us all to take a piece of this personal ocean home with us. Open your bags, dig through your pockets, and pull out your bottle of perfume or makeup. Empty it out. Get rid of that product that says you are not beautiful enough or sweet enough, and fill the bottle back up with our sacred water. Our sacred water that says you are strong and powerful like a raging river. That you are expansive and loving as the ocean. You are exactly as you are meant to be. And may this water always remind you.”
Lucille and Carolyn started something very powerful that day. Powerful enough that Unitarian Universalists carry on the tradition today.
Every year we come together and we bring our water together to combine in one community.
Reading
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
Wendell BerryWhen despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Centering
Music for Meditation: “Washing of the Water” (Peter Gabriel) – The First UU Adult Vocal Ensemble & Band; Brent Baldwin, voice & piano; Jill Csekitz, drums; Valeria Diaz, keyboard; Angel Roman, bass guitar
Sermon
INGATHERING AND WATER COMMUNION
Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
Chris
Well, here we are again, at the beginning of a new church year – coming together for our annual ingathering.
Summer traveling to escape the heat has mostly wrapped up, though our sweltering days, apparently have not.
Our schools are back in session. Our religious education activities here at the church have ramped back up.
And so we gather together to renew our commitment and covenant with one another as a religious community. We recommit to our Unitarian Universalist faith – our values and mission as the church.
We commit to living love and building our dreams together.
And it is an exciting church year we enter now together, as we begin to live out the set of new strategic priorities, or ends, for how we will live out our mission that folks here in the church have recently articulated. Our mission and ends express the ways through which we commit to building our dreams together.
So it is with great joy that we begin our commitment to them this morning.
And so, welcome, welcome to this, our annual ingathering service, which it is our tradition to celebrate with our water communion ceremony, which Rev. Carrie will talk with us about in a moment.
First though, I would like to welcome to our ingathering, a new addition to our ministry and church life.
I am so thrilled to welcome Andrea McDaniel, who will serve as our minister intern in this new church year. Andrea is a local seminary student who is in formation to become a Unitarian Universalist minister.
Andrea, could you please come forward, so that we may formally and joyful welcome you into our ministry in loving covenant.
The work of ministry is too large for one person alone. It is a shared calling. Today, we welcome Andrea McDaniel into our community as our Ministerial Intern. An internship is a sacred time of learning, practicing, and growing.
Andrea, we welcome you to this pulpit, to our pastoral spaces, and into the entirety of religious life in this church. We covenant to learn and grow along with you.
Andrea
I come to you with an open heart, a willingness to learn, and a commitment to serve. I promise to offer you my authentic self, my growing skills, and my deep respect. I enter this covenant ready to learn the arts of ministry alongside you.
Carrie
Members and friends of First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, I invite you to rise in body or in spirit and join me in reading a congregational covenant, found in your order of service and on the screens.
Congregation
We welcome you, Andrea, as our partner in ministry. We covenant to provide a safe and courageous space for your learning. We promise to listen to your voice, respect your leadership, and support your growth. We give you the freedom to succeed and the grace to make mistakes as we all do, knowing that both are necessary for learning. We pledge our cooperation, our patience, and our affection as we journey together this year.
Chris
By this covenant we welcome you, Andrea McDaniel, into the ministries of this church. We pledge to you our support and are blessed by your presence among us. May all who are present say, “Amen”
All
Amen.
Carrie
Today is our water communion and so water has been on my mind. I’ve been especially thinking a lot about estuaries, like the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary that I had the pleasure of spending time with and learning from many years ago.
Estuaries are interesting places that stay in constant transition. Where fresh water from a river meets the salty water of the Ocean.
This mixing of waters creates a dynamic eco-systems – the chesapeake bay supports over 3,600 types of species that thrive on it, that is not to mention human animals that are supported by it.
And on top of being life-giving, they are protective.
They hold back pollution that comes from the land so that it doesn’t go into the Ocean
And they protect the coastline from storms on the ocean by absorbing and dispersing the energy of the storm before it hits land.
They are powerful and beautiful places on our planet and they only exist because of the mingling of different types of water.
That feels very relevant to what we are doing today. Today in the water communion we are ritualizing what it means to bring ourselves – with our unique stories, values, and beliefs into this place.
Into community.
A pluralist community. A community centered on the care and concern for one another.
A covenantal community that aspires to hold ourselves and others gently
A community that aspires to be centered in love.
A community is like an estuary in that it is created by the mixing of different types of people. And it is like a estuary in that it can be live giving and protective.
The diversity of this community makes it possible for us to create rich thoughts, ideas, visions for the beloved community….a life giving task if ever there was one.
And because of that it grounds us in our values so that we can be motivated to act on behalf of our neighbors:
And it provides a shelter from the storms that rage.
Our covenantal community gives us the anchor that will hold us fast as the waves crash around us and the tide is pulled out from under our feet.
We bring ourselves into this place and we add to it, just as our new intern minister will add to it.
By bringing ourselves into this place, by allowing ourselves to be a part of a larger community we are co-creating a life-giving, nourishing and protective space.
Because of the power and the beauty that can happen in a community we ritualize it every year.
WATER COMMUNION RITUAL
Chris
Now we are going to consider in what way or ways the water you have brought to share and intermingle with that of your fellow members of the religious community represents what you value most deeply.
Perhaps, you have brought water from a place where you gather with your family or loved ones each year, and so it represents love and relationship, and perhaps in the case of an annual family reunion, the role that ancestors continue to play in your life.
Maybe you simply brought water from a faucet in your yard somewhere, from which you water that which you garden and grow. And so your water might represent interconnectedness with the natural world, or the wonder you find in the cycles of life, or the value of nourishing and tending other life. These are just a few examples.
Carrie
In just a moment, we will invite you to find someone nearby, preferably someone whom you did not come with today, and then share with that person, the story of your water and most importantly its meaning for you.
If you did not actually bring water today, that’s OK, we have provided extra containers of water, and you can bring into your thoughts and heart, a source of water that is significant to you and what it represents for you.
If you are not comfortable sharing verbally, that is absolutely fine too. It is OK to let folks know you would prefer to contemplate this to yourself in a kind of personal meditation.
We invite our children and youth who were with us this morning to also share with one another by finding someone close in age nearby you with whom to share.
If you have joined us virtually and have access to the comments, please feel free to share in that way, or, if you are watching with others, to talk about the meaning of the water you have brought to mind with one another.
Here in the sanctuary, we will give you a couple of minutes each to share, and will let you know when it is time to switch who is sharing. Please go ahead and find someone nearby now, and I will let you know when to begin the sharing!
Chris
Now, I will invite you to come forward with your water, and to intermingle it with the water that others have brought in one of our large vases upfront here.
Now, as our music begins to play, let our annual water communion begin.
SHARING RITUAL
Chris
All blessings upon these waters. All blessings upon each of you who have shared them.
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 special time of holding
Of ingathering
Of ritualizing our contributions to community
May you feel held
May you feel renewed
May you know you are lovedGo in peace
Postlude
“The Moldau” (Smetana) – Valeria Diaz, piano
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.
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