Burning Bowl 2023

January 3, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Bis Thorton
December 31, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

For New Year’s Day, we will hold our annual burning bowl service. We contemplate what we would like to let go so that we may more easily find our center. Then we whisper that which we would like to let go into pieces of flash paper, toss them into a fire and watch them burn away.

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

BURNING THE OLD YEAR
Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

LOVE LETTER Nathalie Handel

I’d like to be a shrine, so I can learn from peoples’ prayers the story of hearts. I’d like to be a scarf so I can place it over my hair and understand other worlds. I’d like to be the voice of a soprano singer so I can move through all borders and see them vanish with every spell-binding note. I’d like to be light so I illuminate the dark. I’d like to be water to fill bodies so we can gently float together indefinitely. I’d like to be a lemon, to be zest all the time, or an olive tree to shimmer silver on the earth. Most of all, I’d like to be a poem, to reach your heart and stay.

Sermon

Before we really get going, I want to address our friends who are in church online today. Today is our Burning Bowl ceremony, which involves taking pieces of flash paper and putting them into a fire. I would like to invite all those in church this morning who are not in the physical building to participate and be both CREATIVE…and SAFE. You might toss an imaginary piece of paper into a candle. You might use your powers of visualization and imagination to put a piece of flash paper into a bonfire in your mind. I would love to know what you decide to do, so feel free to let the church know about it in a Facebook comment or an email or a carrier pigeon or whatever. Whatever you decide to do, I will be carrying one piece of flash paper to the fire to represent what you are letting go of today.

Alright, let’s get going. I want to ask you a strange question this morning. Who is fire? I know what fire is. But who is fire? How do you know it in your life? When I think of fire, I see a series of images and scenes. The knight of wands from the Rider- Waite-Smith Tarot, a young adult in silver armor and yellow clothing astride a red horse galloping across a desert. The gas heater in my first apartment and the way I had to lie down on the floor and then perilously light its pilot light with a match every single time I wanted to use it…and then, the accompanying smell of burning dust, as I didn’t use the heater very often.

Prometheus chained to a rock in the sea, punished for giving fire to humanity. Standing with my friends in a backyard at night, the black sky above us, the darkness holding us, shovels in our hands, laughing and chanting as we dig into the earth to make a fire pit. Christ resurrected, roasting fish on the shore as Peter swims frantically towards his beloved teacher with all his clothes on. Holding a single candle in my hands and lifting it up towards the ceiling of a chapel as we read the name of a beloved soul for another Trans Day of Remembrance.

And, of course, the chalice. We light it at least once a weekÐsometimes more often. The chalice holds more meanings than I can count, which is its power and beautyÐit is the spark of the divine within each of us; it is the light of truth; it is the fire of commitment; it is the warmth of community; it is a torch to the light the way; it is the fire we tend that was lit long before each of us; it is the gift we give to all those who seek it; it is an image from the 1940s; it is timeless; it is an object in our sanctuary; it is passion; it is reason; it is the flaming chalice, symbol of our faith.

Today, I want to do two things. I want to explore fire as a recurring symbol in our faith and our lives, and I want to guide us through our ritual of the Burning Bowl.

So: fire.

Fires must be fed. Like us, they eat. When I think of this, I see myself on my back porch, standing over a little black grill. I accidentally drop a ring of onion between the bars of a grill and into the coals, and I say what I always say when this happens, “That one is a sacrifice to the little god of the fire.” Fire must be fed. The fire in our church’s chalice eats oil; there’s an oil lamp inside of it. And the fire of our burning bowl eats…something more complicated than that.

In a literal sense, it eats accelerant and flash paper. But it also eats gifts from all of us.

The Burning Bowl or Fire Communion is a New Year’s service held by many Unitarian Universalists. This service is our chance as a community to consider our year, and consider our attitudes and behaviors, and then keep what was good, and let go of what was not.

What shall we each give the bowl this year? What is it that we are ready to leave behind? There is always a lot of advice flying around, especially this time of year, regarding exactly where we’ve all fallen short. Some of it may even be good advice. But I worry.

Because I want us to find our joy and our truth by what resonates as true within each of us, not by listening to shame. I want to speak from the heart about this. I think we all have something to let go of today. We all do things that hurt people. We all do things that hurt ourselves. And we all do things that do both, and we hurt others WHILE we hurt ourselves.

And many of us cling to these behaviors for reasons that are sometimes simple and sometimes complicated and hard to understand. In their misguided way, these behaviors protect or serve us. We lash out to push people away before they hurt us. We isolate ourselves to protect ourselves from the possibility of rejection. We say hurtful things to feel strong instead of weak. We judge because we are afraid of the danger others may be putting themselves in. We replicate cycles of abuse and oppression to maintain our power. … And we know we have to stop. But we get stuck. When someone else points it out, we start to panic. We feel ashamed. We spiral. And my friends, I don’t want you to let anything go today just because you are ashamed. You deserve to live a beautiful life free of whatever it is that has hurt you or those around you. We all deserve this, and we can build this life together. As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm that all people have inherent worth and dignity, and that includes you.

We can let go with a spirit of love, a spirit of care, a spirit of joy. And we can grieve whatever must be grieved with open hearts, unburdened by shame. Shame demands we shove whatever repulses us into a box and fight to keep it hidden. But with compassion, we can see that even our worst behaviors were trying to serve us, protect us, and show us love in a misguided and harmful way. And we can hold this part of ourselves close to our hearts, thank it for all it has tried to do and all that it has taught us, and then, finally, we can say goodbye, knowing that the sacred fire will transform it.

So let the fire shine its light upon you. Listen for the still small voice insideÐthe divine spark, which guides you towards a life of love and joy. And together we will feed this fire. For indeed, whatever you give the fire is a gift.

For the fire of the burning bowl will live by eating what you feed it, and will transform what it is fed, and it will feed you, too. And…I believe that by feeding the burning bowl, you also feed the chalice. What might you feed the fire today that will give fuel to the light that shines upon systems of oppression until they are no more? What might you feed the fire today that will cause the light of truth, the warmth of community, and the fire of commitment to burn even more brightly than before? What might you feed the fire today that will tend to your own divine spark and the divine spark of others? What might you feed the fire today that will honor and care for the flaming chalice, symbol of our faith, rich with infinite meaning?

So, with all of that in our minds and hearts, let us light the burning bowl and begin this ritual. We will consider the year together before bringing our gifts to the fire.

In a moment, I will invite Carolyn to carry a flame from the chalice into the bowl. As she does so, let us sit in prayer and contemplation of our own special relationships with the chalice. What values does it hold for you today? Which flames dance most beautifully within you this morning? If you are joining this ritual online, I invite you to light a candle, imagine the bowl vividly in your mind, or do whatever it is you would like to do to participate. I will hold this piece of flash paper for all of you and carry it into the fire last.

Carolyn, please light the fire. [Carolyn lights the bowl]

The fire of the chalice, which is now the fire of the burning bowl, welcomes you. Love, beauty, joy, and compassion live within it. The fire accepts all of who you are, and all of what you will give it. As you consider this past year, you may feel a sting of shame. You may recoil from something you wish you had not done. Please know that you are safe here. No one desires for you to feel any shame. You need not hide anything from this sacred fire. You are already held by what is sacred and counted among the beloved of the world. You are a creature of inherent worth and dignity, and nothing can change that fact. This truth lives within you, and you can return to it at any time.

Now, as the fire burns, let us take a moment to take stock of the past year: 2023. I invite you now to close your eyes if it will be helpful to you. Let the memories of this year flow through you, as much as you can. Say hello to your joys. Say hello to your sorrows. What did you do this year that brought you joy? And what did you do this year that did not? Let’s take a moment to hold each memory of our thoughts and actions, to see which brings joy and which does not. If shame comes, you need not fear it. You are safe here.

Now, let us hold our flash papers (or simply our thoughts) near to ourselves. You can hold this paper in any number of ways. Hold it against your heart so that it can feel what most longs to be free. Hold it against your head so that it can hear the thoughts which wheel within you. Hold it against the part of your body which feels most tense so that it can meet your body’s pain with compassion. Or hold it in a way that your heart, mind, body, or other guide asks you to. If you feel a mysterious communication, follow its guidance. You are safe here. Let us take a holy quiet moment to listen to whatever still small voice might speak to us now.

What shall you let go of today? There are many ways to know. You may know it by a word or phrase: fear, anger, bigotry, reliance on the opinion of others, self-doubt. You may know it by an image in your mind: a closed fist, a dying plant, a dusty stack of papers, an old book, an empty glass. You may know it by a feeling in your body: a tightness, a hot face, a sore throat, a restless urge to run. You may know it by a color, a face, a voice, a sound, or even a disorganized thought. These things go by many names. You may not be entirely sure what your gift to the fire will be today, and that is alright, too. You are safe here, and no one here desires that you feel any shame.

Whatever you will be letting go of today, hold its identity, its name, its image or thought or sound as you hold your paper. If you wish, you may whisper its name into your paper now.

Now, as you hold this thing in your hands, you might see that it is not what you first thought. Perhaps it is much larger than you realized; perhaps it is much smaller. It has done something for you, perhaps in a misguided way. It has tried to protect you, or tried to teach you. It may have harmed you, or it may have harmed others, or maybe both. But in its imperfect way, it has tried. Now comes its time for it to transform in the fire and find a new life, supporting the values you hold in the flame of the chalice.

If you are ready, or if you feel able, outloud or in your mind, I invite us now to thank these parts of ourselves for all they have taught us, by saying: “Thank you; I wish you well.” Thank you, I wish you well.

Now let’s cast them into the fire so they can begin their new existence! Friends in the sanctuary, please line up.

Friends who are online, please take this time to perform the remainder of this ritual however you have chosen to do so.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 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

Lessons and Carols 2023

December 29, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson & Rev. Michelle LaGrange
December 24th, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

On Christmas Eve we hold our annual Lessons and Carols service featuring beautiful, holiday-related readings and singing carols together. We join together for this magical day of celebrating love, joy, and peace.

Chalice Lighting

On this night of anticipation, we raise our voices in story and song to greet Christmas. May the lessons of compassion, trust, and generosity alight within us and lead us into the new day, renewed.

Opening Words

CHRISTMAS EVE
by Rev. Mary Wellemeyer (adapted)

Like those shepherds who were on the hillsides with their flocks,
like those wise ones in their observatories with their telescopes and astronomical charts,
we find our daily work interrupted by these holy days.

And like them, we cannot keep on working, we must stop and listen to the
singing of the angels, and feel the call of that special star,

The little town of Bethlehem is thronged with people who have come to be taxed,
crowding streets and shops, and we must wind our way to an unknown place
where a wonderful new beginning awaits.

What precious new beginning are you seeking this night?
For what do you push through the crowds?
What message do the angels sing to you?
What is the call of your star?

Anthem:

“Cantique de Noel” (Adolphe Adam)
Katrina Saporsantos & Gabriel Liboiron-Cohen, vocals;
Benjamin Dia, piano

Reading

COME INTO CHRISTMAS
by Ellen Fay

It is the winter season of the year
Dark and chilly
Perhaps it is a winter season in your life.
Dark and chilly there, too
Come in to Christmas here,
Let the light and warmth of Christmas brighten our
lives and the world.
Let us find in the dark corners of our souls the
light of hope,
A vision of the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Let us find rest in the quiet of a holy moment to
find promise and renewal.
Let us find the child in each of us, the new hope,
the new light, born in us.
Then will Christmas come
Then will magic return to the world.

Carol “O Come All Ye Faithful”

Reading

THE SHORTEST DAY
by Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Carol “Joy to the World”

Reading

CHRISTMAS IS SUBVERSIVE
by Rev. Kendyl Gibbons

One of the great things about Christmas is that it is a sturdy holiday. Christmas doesn’t wimp out when times are hard – it comes anyway, even if there are hardly any presents, even when there isn’t much food to make a feast with, even if you’re sad, even if the world around you is at war, even if you are living in fear and danger and oppression, Christmas still comes.

And when it comes, Christmas is subversive. Christmas, with its story of an unwed mother and a doubtful father; with its legend of a helpless baby, born in a stable, who was worshipped by some of the wisest, richest men in the world; with its tale of the child pursued by the deadly wrath of kings, who escaped as a refugee to a foreign land far from home.

Christmas, with its ancient, enduring summons of peace on earth, good will to all people, everywhere. You can’t stop a day like that with a little hardship, or greed, or injustice. It will show up anyway, shining the light of a midnight star into the darkest places of our collective lives.

Do not underestimate the power of the manger, and the hope it holds. The Christmas song of the angels is not as innocent as it sounds. It has turned the world upside down before now. It still can.

Carol “Angels We Have Heard on High”

Reading

Luke 2:1-7

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Reading

A CAUTIONARY CHRISTMAS TALE
by Rev. Frank Rivas (adapted)

My little sister, Renee, was ten years younger than I. When she was in kindergarten, I considered her to be the most obnoxious child on this planet.

So I decided to get her a lump of coal for Christmas. I know that people generally consider it Santa’s responsibility to give lumps of coal to kids who misbehave, but I had learned over the years not to trust Santa’s judgment. I’d seen it over and over again; the old man went easy on little kids.

So the responsibility fell to me. I searched the yellow pages, went to the nearest coal yard, picked out an exceptionally large chunk, wrapped it nicely in a box with a bow and placed it under the Christmas tree.

Our family encouraged recipients to lift, shake, and guess at the contents as soon as a gift was under the tree. Renee was fascinated. What gift could weigh so much?

By our Christmas morning tradition, the gifts were sorted into five piles; then one at a time, going around the circle as many times as necessary, we opened our gifts for everyone to see.

Renee opened mine first. As she unwrapped ribbon, paper and box, her excitement grew. My excitement grew too; the moment of reckoning was at hand. From her first glance at the coal she loved it. She screamed with delight and hugged me profusely.

How was I to know that only a week earlier, in her kindergarten class, she had learned to grow colorful crystals on coal. How was I to know that this would be her favorite gift?

There’s a moral to this story, my friends. Watch out for this season. There’s a spirit in the air that can turn even the most vindictive thoughts into good deeds.

Reading

Luke 2:8-14

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Hymn #244: “It Came upon a Midnight Clear”

Reading

Luke 2:15-20

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Reading

EACH NIGHT A CHILD IS BORN
Sophia Lyon Fahs (adapted)

For so the children come
and so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they came-
Born of the seed of life.
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
no wise ones see a star to show where to find
The babe that will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Parents
Sitting beside their children’s cribs-
Feel glory in the sight of a new beginning.
They ask “Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?”
Each night a child is born is a holy night-
A time for singing-
A time for wondering
A time for worshiping.

Carol No. 245: “Joy to the World”

Reading

THE CAMELS SPEAK
by Lynn Ungar

Of course they never consulted us. They were wise men, kings, starreaders, and we merely transportation.

They simply loaded us with gifts and turned us toward the star.

I ask you, what would a king know of choosing presents for a child?

Had they ever even seen a baby born to such simple folks, so naked of pretension, so open to the wind?

What would such a child care for perfumes and gold?

Far better to have asked one born in the desert, tested by wind and sand.

We saw what he would need: the gift of perseverance, of continuing on the hard way, making do with what there is, living on what you have inside.s

The gift of holding up under a burden, of lifting another with grace, of kneeling to accept the weight of what you must bear.

Our footsteps could have rocked him with the rhythm of the road, shown him comfort in a harsh land, the dignity of continually moving forward. But the wise men were not wise enough to ask.

They simply left their trinkets and admired the rustic view. Before you knew it, we were turned again toward home, carrying men only half-willing to be amazed.

But never mind.

We saw the baby, felt him reach for the bright tassels of our gear. We desert amblers have our ways of seeing what you chatterers must miss. That child at heart knows something about following a star.

Our gifts are given.

Offering

“Carol of the Bells” (Mykola Leontovych; arr. Margaret Goldstone)
Benjamin Dia, piano

Reading

A RITUAL OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE FIRE
Rev. Michelle LaGraveand Rev. Chris Jimmerson

Let us take into our hands a Christmas candle, a Solstice candle
this is a night of ancient joy and ancient fear
those who have gone before us were fearful of what lurked
outside the ring of fire, of light and warmth.

As we light this fire we ask that the fullness of its flame
protect each of us from what we fear most
and guide us towards our perfect light and joy.

May we each be encircled by the fire and warmth of love
and by the flame of our friendship with one another.

On this night, it was the ancient custom to exchange gifts
of light, symbolic of the new light of the sun.

Therefore make ready for the light!
Light of star, light of candle,
Firelight, lamplight, love light
Let us share the gift of light.

Candle Lighting: “Silent Night, Holy Night” (Instrumental)

Carol “Silent Night, Holy Night”

Reading

THE WORK OF CHRISTMAS
by Howard Thurman

When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are
home,
When shepherds are back with
their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the brothers,
to make music in the heart.

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.

Closing Words

KNEELING IN BETHLEHEM by Ann Weems

It is not over, this birthing.
There are always newer skies
into which God can throw stars.
When we begin to think
that we can predict the Advent of God,
that we can box the Christ in a stable in Bethlehem,
that’s just the time that God will be born
in a place we can’t imagine and won’t believe.
Those who wait for God
watch with their hearts and not their eyes,
listening, always listening for angel words.

Singing Together

WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year

Oh, bring us some figgy pudding
Oh, bring us some figgy pudding
Oh, bring us some figgy pudding
And bring it right here

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year

We won’t go until we get some
We won’t go until we get some
We won’t go until we get some
So bring it right here

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year

We all like our figgy pudding
We all like our figgy pudding
We all like our figgy pudding
With all its good cheers

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year

We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Christmas Pageant 2023

December 19, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave, Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Kelly Stokes
December 17, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We join together for this annual tradition of song and holiday merriment.

Chalice Lighting

We’re Unitarians.
We’re Universalists.

Now we light our chalice.
We’re the church of the open mind.
We’re the church of the listening ears.
We’re the church of the loving heart
and helping hands.

Call to Worship

WHAT ARE YOU HERE FOR?
by Quinn G. Caldwell

If you came to this place expecting a tame story, you came to the wrong place.

If you came for a story that does not threaten you, you came for a different story than the one we tell.

If you came to hear of the coming of a God who only showed up so that you could have a nice day with your loved ones, then you came for a God whom we do not worship here.

For even a regular baby is not a tame thing. And goodness that cannot threaten complacency and evil is not much good at all, and a God who would choose to give up power and invincibility to become an infant for you, certainly didn’t do it just you could have dinner.

But.

If you came because you think that unwed teenage mothers are some of the strongest people in the world.

If you came because you think that the kind of people who work third shift doing stuff you’d rather not do might attract an angel’s attention before you, snoring comfortably in your bed, would.

If you came because you think there are wise men and women to be found among undocumented travelers from far lands and that they might be able to show you God.

If you came to hear a story of tyrants trembling while heaven comes to peasants.

If you came because you believe that God loves the animals as much as the people and so made them the first witnesses to the saving of the world.

If you came for a story of reversals that might end up reversing you.

If you came for a tale of adventure and bravery, where strong and gentle people win, and the powerful and violent go down to dust, where the rich lose their money but find their lives and the poor are raised up like kings.

If you came to be reminded that God loves you too much to leave you unchanged.

If you came to follow the light even if it blinds you.

If you came for salvation and not safety, then: ah, my friends, you are in the right place.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE INNKEEPER
by Anne Dilenschneider

The innkeeper isn’t part of most Nativity sets. No one sings carols about innkeepers. There don’t seem to be any paintings that include them. But we can imagine the scene:

Bethlehem is crowded with people coming home for the census. It’s late at night when the innkeeper responds to a knock on the door and finds a young couple standing there. The woman is very pregnant. She and her spouse look exhausted. They’ve walked a hundred miles over rough, rocky terrain to get here from Nazareth.

The innkeeper is confronted with a dilemma. The inn is full; there just isn’t any more room. At the same time, the innkeeper knows that offering hospitality is part of being God’s people, because they had been sojourners and strangers in Egypt. That’s why the innkeeper has always made sure there’s an empty chair for an unexpected guest at the annual seder meal celebrating Passover.

What to do?

As a child, the innkeeper had learned the story of Abraham and Sarah welcoming three strangers into their home. After they made the strangers a lavish feast, the couple discovered their guests were messengers (“angels”) sent to bring great news: as laughable as it seemed, the elderly Sarah was going to have a baby. So, the innkeeper knows the tradition of entertaining strangers; the innkeeper knows strangers are messengers (“angels”) from God.

Tonight there is a bedraggled and weary couple on this very doorstep.

What to do?

The innkeeper pulls the door to a bit, hastily assessing the situation. Is there any space, anywhere? The beds are all taken. There are even people sleeping on the floor. What to do? Is there any possible solution?

In a moment of inspiration, the innkeeper remembers the stable out behind the inn. It’s not much, but it’s some protection from the wind. No matter how bitter the weather may become, the heat from the animals will keep these guests warm.

The innkeeper flings open the door and welcomes the couple with a broad smile. There’s not much, but there’s a possibility. A stable. Will it suffice?

It does.

And the innkeeper saves the day.

Christmas Pageant

Reading

“EACH NIGHT A CHILD IS BORN”
by Sophia Lyon Fahs

For so the children come
and so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they came-
Born of the seed of man and woman.

No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
no wise man see a star to show where to find
The babe that will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers
Sitting beside their children’s cribs-
Feel glory in the sight of a new beginning.
They ask “Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?”

Each night a child is born is a holy night
A time for singing-
A time for wondering
A time for worshipping.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Let the Mystery Be

December 11, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
December 10, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Mystery abounds during this season of telling the old stories and celebrating the unknown. How does mystery feed our spirits or nourish our souls? How does embracing the unknown help us to grow?

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

IN THIS SPIRIT OF SEARCHING
by Joan Javier-Duval

Out of depths unknown
the spark of life ignites
and we are born
we enter a world, a universe
not of our making
our lives unfold
in mystery and wonder
questions abound
for which there are no definite answers
and so
we gather in community
to seek in one another
assurance
and recognition
compassion and strength
we gather in community
to be reminded
of what is most ultimate
and what is most sacred
in this spirit of searching
and of reverence
let us worship together this morning

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

I have been looking for the words that come
before words: the words older than silence,
the ones not mine, that can’t be found by thought –
the ones that hold the beginning of the world
and are never used up, and arrive loaned,
and make me weep.

– Nancy Shaffer

Sermon

There are so many kinds of mysteries in the world. The kind written in books, for which there is an entire genre. The kind for which there are no answers. The kind for which we suspect there might be a scientific explanation someday, even if not in our own lifetime. The kind which are hard to bear. The kind of which mystics speak. The kind that moves us to write a poem or compose a piece of music or create a piece of art. The kind that prompts us to study thea/ology or moves us to explore the stars. In this world of ours, one thing is clear: mystery abounds.

Rev. Michelle tells her personal story: “Music for Dance class.”

There are times when the joy is found in not finding an answer, enjoying the mystery, the experience of wondering, allowing the mystery to remain unnamable, unknowable, letting the mystery be.

Here’s another story, this one comes from Erik Walker Wikstrom …

One day a Religious Man approached a Mystic and asked, “Does God exist?”

“Allow me to go within for an answer,” the Mystic replied. After meditating for quite some time, expanding her heartconsciousness to embrace the totality of existence, she answered, “I do not know what you mean by the word ‘God,’ but I do know that this world is more mysterious and more wonderful than I could ever imagine. I know that you and I are part of something so much larger than our own lives. Perhaps this ‘something larger’ is what you seek.”

Then the Religious Man approached a Scientist. “Does God exist?” he asked.

“Let me think,” the Scientist replied. And so she thought. She thought about the vastness of the universe-156 billion light-years, or something like 936 billion trillion miles, in diameter-and the almost immeasurable smallness of a quark. She thought of how the energy of the Big Bang fuels the beating of her own heart. And then she answered, “I do not know what you mean by the word ‘God,” but I do know that this world is more mysterious and more wonderful than I could ever imagine. I know that you and I are part of something so much larger than our own lives. Perhaps this ‘something larger’ is what you seek.”

The Religious Man then thought to himself. He thought of what he knows and what he does not know. He thought about how he knows what he knows, and how he knows he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. He thought about his experience of the world and how it is but one tiny, infinitesimal fraction of all experience. He thought about his dependence on forces larger than himself, and he thought about the interdependence of all existence. He experienced wonder and pondered mystery. And then he knew-he knew in his soul the truth of what the Mystic and the Scientist said-that he is part of something so much larger than his own life.

And then, only then, did he think about what he’d call it.

Where is mystery in your life?
And what do you call it?
Or do you prefer for it to remain unnamed?

Sarah York writes:

We receive fragments of holiness,
glimpses of eternity,
brief moments of insight.
Let us gather them up
for the precious gifts that they are
and, renewed by their grace,
move boldly into the unknown.

May it always be so. Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction by Eric Williams

We all emerge from
Dwell within
Are transformed by
And called back to Love.

May your mind be humbled before this Mystery.
May your heart grow hopeful by it.
May you be sustained by this Love always.

Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Oh, Holy Night

December 5, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
December 3, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The winter solstice has been observed through a variety of rituals, celebrations, and spiritual beliefs across multiple cultures and throughout the ages. We will explore some of these traditions, many of which still manifest within our current practices. The winter solstice has often been associated with the return of the light. Might it just strongly transport us into an embrace of the “divine darkness”?

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

YOU DARKNESS
– Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by David Whyte

You darkness from which I come,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence out the world,
for the fire makes a circle
for everyone
so that no one sees you anymore.
But darkness holds it all:
the shape and the flame,
the animal and myself,
how it holds them,
all powers, all sight –
and it is possible: its great strength
is breaking into my body.

I have faith in the night.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

WINTER SOLSTICE
By Rebecca Ann Parker

Perhaps
for a moment
the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.

For an instant,
in the stillness,
the chiming of the celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness,
and then
gracefully
tilts.

Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.

Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.

There are inexplicable mysteries.

We are not alone.

In the universe there moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter earth’s axis
toward love.

In the immense darkness
everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars,
cradled in a swaying embrace,
rocked by the holy night,
babes of the universe.
Let this be the time
we wake to life,
like spring wakes, in the moment
of winter solstice.

Sermon

British author, journalist, and activist George Monbiot said of the December holidays, “The Christians stole the winter solstice from the Pagans, and capitalism stole it from the Christians.”

The winter solstice is December 22 this year, so I thought we might get an early start exploring what of our Christmas traditions are at least borrowed from these pre and non-Christian solstice practices and what spiritual wisdom we might find from those practices.

The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. It occurs in December in the Northern hemisphere and June in the Southern. The earth’s axis tilts to the point where one region of the globe is the farthest it gets away from the sun.

Various ancient traditions, rituals, and beliefs around this occurrence have developed throughout the world.

Not surprisingly, many of these center around:

winter,
fire and warmth,
agriculture in anticipation of planting and the spring that will come,
the return of the light (after the shortest day of the year, the days will gradually get longer again)

Cultures in the Northern hemisphere, especially, observed that for three days the sun would appear to be in the same place on the horizon, after which it would seem to begin rising again.

Hmmm. After three days, the sun rises again. That seems vaguely familiar.

As I was researching all of this though, the most striking element to me is that these ancient spiritual observations of the winter solstice, this darkest day and longest night of the year, have also been about finding holiness in that darkness.

But to get to that, let’s start with some of what we in the north have borrowed from these oftentimes ancient winter solstice traditions.

So, let’s start with the ancient Roman tradition of Saturnalia – a weeks long celebration of their agriculture God, Saturn, leading up to the winter solstice.

Saturnalia was a raucous and carnal time of heavy drinking and partying, when the social order was reversed, and the servants and slaves were not only temporarily given freedom but could demand gifts from their masters.

During the festivities, all Romans would also exchange small gifts with one another. And from this our Christmas tradition of drinking way too much and demanding presents was born.

Though in all fairness, heavy drinking and exchanging gifts was also common to the winter solstice observations of many European cultures.I have to wonder if all the drinking was how they too coped with spending way too much time with extended family.

Now, I have been joking about the long tradition of drinking alcohol during this time of the year. There is a far from humorous side to it also though. In the U.S., the days right after the Christmas and New Years holidays are when the highest number of folks seek treatment for alcohol withdrawal. And if you want an example of how capitalism has colonized Christmas, just think about how many liquor advertisements we see this time of the year.

Well, Germanic, Nordic and other peoples celebrated what has widely become combined into we call “Yuletide”, when they would bring home large yule logs and light one end to bum for several days of feasting and festivities.

The Germanic people would also roast a wild boar to appease their God of fertility. This is likely the source of our holiday ham tradition. They also hung stockings on their chimney’s to leave for their God, Odin and the 8-legged horse he rode.

Near the time of winter solstice, several of the so-called Pagan societies would also gather mistletoe, which symbolized fertility, romance, peace, and joy depending upon the group.

Under sprigs of mistletoe, some of them would even engage in elaborate fertility rituals (a-hem). Today, we leave it at a simple kiss – probably because that extended family always seems to be around.

For the Romans, holly was also a sacred plant, connected with the God Saturn. They would make holly wreaths to exchange as gifts for good luck.

When Christianity was still forbidden within the Roman empire, early Christians avoided detection by hanging holly wreaths around their homes to make it look like they were celebrating Saturnalia.

Our Christmas Caroling tradition likely comes from the AngloSaxon winter wassailing celebration, which involved, you guessed it, drinking lots of an alcohol based traditional wassail beverage, sort of similar to eggnog, and going door to door, singing to the neighbors to wish them good health and banish evil spirits.

This was also sometimes done in fruit tree orchards, also to banish evil spirits and wish for a good harvest.

Well, one last example among far more than we can cover today, is our perhaps most famous symbol of the Christmas season, the Christmas tree.

During the time near winter solstice, Romans hung small metal ornaments on trees around their homes, representing their Gods. Other cultures would decorate trees with fruits and candles, either outside or after bringing them into their homes.

The bringing in of evergreens, likely symbolized new or even eternal life in the midst of the cold and darkness of winter. And that brings me back to this idea that these winter solstice practices, yes, were rituals about holding onto to life and the return of the sun and the light.

As importantly though, they were also about, not so much driving away the dark, but of embracing being in the darkness.

The candles, the fires, the evergreens, the associated celebrations and rituals and singing and gift giving were also about finding a way through, even rejoicing in the darkness – finding the holy in the nighttime.

And I think this is an important concept that has too often gotten lost to us in more modern times. We have come to celebrate that which is good only with light and white and bright – and to associate darkness with that which is bad and painful and evil. And this can damage us spiritually.

It leads us to value only the so called “bright” emotions such as joy and love and avoid the “dark” emotions such as sorrow and grief. Any yet, we need all of these emotions and more to be psychologically healthy sometimes. And these connotations have found their way into racist tropes involving lighter complected skin versus darker.

Retired Unitarian Universalist religious educator Jacqui James captured all of this when she wrote:

“Blackmail, blacklist, black mark. Black Monday, black mood, black-hearted. Black plague, black mass, black market. Good guys wear white, bad guys wear black … Angels and brides wear white. Devil’s food cake is chocolate; angel’s food cake is white!

We shape language and we are shaped by it. In our culture, white is esteemed … At the same time, black is evil, wicked, gloomy, depressing, angry, sullen. Ascribing negative and positive values to black and white enhances the institutionalization of this culture’s racism.”

And this valuing of the light and shunning of the dark has further theological implications. Author, Episcopal Priest and spiritual teacher, Barbara Taylor Brown addresses these in her book on this subject, “Learning to Walk in the Dark”.

She writes,

“At the theological level, however, this language creates all sorts of problems. It divides every day in two, pitting the light part against the dark part. It tucks all the sinister stuff into the dark part, identifying God with the sunny part and leaving you to deal with the rest on your own time. It implies things about dark-skinned people and sight-impaired people that are not true. Worst of all, it offers people of faith a giant closet in which they can store everything that threatens or frightens them without thinking too much about those things.”

But, we need both the light and the dark. After all, the seed germinates in the darkness of soil. The caterpillar goes through metamorphosis into a butterfly in the darkness of the chrysalis. We develop initially within the darkness of the womb.

And in fact, it may be in the darkness that we connect most deeply with the divine, or, if you prefer, that sense of awe and mystery within which we are given an ineffable awareness that we we are an integral part of something much greater than ourselves.

The Uzbek have a concept of the “divine dark” – the darkness from which all things come – the darkness from when the world was first made, when it was like a gentle night, peaceful, quiet and pitch-black. The night is when creation started, and the night is when you’re closest to sensing what it was like at the very start of the world”.

And this idea of the divine darkness has begun to emerge within Christian and other theologies also. We often close our eyes to pray or meditate, perhaps as a way to enter into the darkness where a sense of the sacred may more easily be found.

In the bible, Genesis describes how God created the world not from light but from the darkness.

Exodus describes how “The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.”

The Psalms quote God’s response to darkness: “Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.”

These are just a few examples. Similarly, we have come to associate being in the dark with a lack of knowing.

Yet, religious mystics speak of the “dark night of the soul” – that we must experience unknowing, the absence of God, in order to gain even a minute sense of a divine presence so vast and never fully comprehensible.

We experience the holy in the mystery.

I love this time of the year, because I experience the holy at night, when we turn off all of the lights except those on the Christmas tree, and we light the fireplace, if it cold enough, which in Texas is about 60 degree Fahrenheit or less.

And there in those Yuletide shadows, it’s just me and Wayne and our our two pups. The Christmas lights and the fire are not there to push out the darkness and the night, just to let us settle into their mysterious magic.

Here is another example.

If you have never experienced a total eclipse of the sun, go out to the central Texas hill country this coming April 8th, when one will occur in our area.

There is a brief moment of magical darkness at the height of such an eclipse that can truly touch our hearts with a sense of the sacred vastness of this universe of which we are a part.

In her book, Barbara Taylor Brown describes research that has been done where they asked volunteers to live without artificial light in order to replicate the amount of time our ancestors would have lived in relative darkness.

They were exploring sleep patterns in such a setting. At first, the volunteers slept 11 hours at a time rather than about 8, perhaps catching up on sleep after leaving the pace of the modern world and the influence of artificial light.

Soon though, they began to sleep about 8 hours again, but not consecutively. They slept a total of around 8 hours, but in separate segments of a few hours each.

What surprised the researchers most though was what happened between some of these sleep segments. Between sleeping, the research participants would sometimes enter into this “resting state” for about a couple of hours in which they were neither actively awake nor soundly asleep. And, their body chemistry and brainwaves during such altered consciousness were very much like that of people in deep states of meditation or prayer.

The director of the study said that it was like finding a fossil of human consciousness, a state of awareness that had largely withered away.

Perhaps by banishing the darkness, we have also lost a part of ourselves that quiet naturally connected with the spiritual. Maybe, we have forgotten that the darkness is sacred; the nights are holy.

Oh, by the way, I titled this service, “Oh, Holy Night” after the Christmas hymn with the same title. I discovered that the hymn was originally written in 1843 by a French poet named Placide Cappeau. When it was later discovered that Cappeau was an atheist with strongly anti-cleric views, the Catholic church banned the hymn. And, Oh, Holy Night was translated into English by American Unitarian and Transcendentalist minister, John Dwight, who lived in a commune and was a music critic. Somehow, that all makes Oh, Holy Night even holier to me!

Maybe I have a dark sense of humor.

As we approach the winter solstice this year, may we remember that we must travel far from our centers of artificial light for it to be dark enough to truly see the stars in the heavens at night.

May we reverence the darkness.

May we make holy the night.

Amen.

Benediction

– by Henry Beston

“Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night … there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity …

For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in its stream of stars – pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across eternal seas of space and time.”

May the congregation say, Amen and blessed be.

Go in peace.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Generosity of Spirit

November 27, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Novmber 26, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Sometimes, we mainly tend to think of generosity as the giving of our time, talent, and treasure, and usually treasure. And it can be all of these things. Spiritual generosity may be more about a way of being in our world though; a deep sense of and grateful appreciation for our true interconnectedness; moving through life with attention to kindness and compassion. As author Ami Campbell writes, “Radical generosity is a way of living, not an act of giving.”

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

“We need to compose our lives in such a way that we both give and receive, learning to do both with grace, seeing both as parts of a single pattern rather than as antithetical alternatives.”

– Mary Catherine Bateson

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

AT THE MARKET
– Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Now when I walk through the market,
I think of how someone else here
beside the stir-fry cart and the tie-dye tent
has just lost a beloved
and is hiding tears behind sunglasses.
Not knowing who they are,
I try to treat everyone with kindness.
Meanwhile the day is beautiful
for everyone, no matter how broken,
how whole our hearts. It gathers us all
in a grand blue embrace.
Part of me resists calling it a miracle.
The other part calls it what it is
and strolls through the miracle
of Friday morning surrounded by arugula
and strawberries, muffins, lilies,
and all these other fragile hearts,
all of us saying excuse me, good morning,
how are you, I’m fine.

Sermon

“Radical generosity is a way of living, not of giving.”

I love that statement from author and philanthropy specialist, Ami Campbell. I think it captures how, at its most quintessential level, generosity is essential to our very spirit. It’s greater than a feeling of obligation to simply give of our time and treasure though those are really important too and part of it, just so I don’t get myself in trouble with our stewardship folks!

Spiritual generosity is about a way of being and of wellbeing. In fact, numerous studies have shown that it can improve our physical and mental health and even extend our lifespan. Now, I’ll talk more about this idea that generosity is such a vital element of our spirituality.

First though, recently, I was looking back through some of the reports from our interim ministers last year and thinking about some of the conversations I’ve had with our current interim minister, Rev. Michelle, and I was stuck by what a generosity of spirit the folks in this church have already shown, as we have been moving through this interim transition period.

Now, if you are new with the church, I should explain that since the summer of 2022, the church has been in what is called an interim ministry period. Normally, our churches have one or more what are called “settled ministers” ministers who are intended to be with the church over the longer term.

Here at First UU Austin, a much-loved such settled minister, Meg Barnhouse, had to retire in 2022 due to health reasons. Well, between settled ministers, specially trained interim ministers who are not intended to stay with the church long-term, help the church through a process of discerning its own identity, goals, and ministerial needs before the next settled minister is called – called means invited into a longer-term ministerial relationship by an extra-super-majority of the congregation.

This congregation recently called me as their next settled minister. However, we’re still in an interim ministry period, at least in part, because the church is large enough to need two longer-term ministers. So, Rev. Michelle will be helping the congregation discern what is else needed and how that second ministerial position might be structured and filled.

Now, in addition to all of that, our interim ministers have also been helping us work through the challenges all churches are facing, as we attempt to determine how best to offer spiritual community in this new world in which we find ourselves after the stay at home days of the pandemic.

Whew – I’m feeling exhausted and in need of a little of that generosity of spirit already! So, let me just repeat, the folks in this church have already offered up such generosity during this transition period! And, I want to be sure to recognize our newer members who have joined right in during the transition with such generous spirits.

Likewise, we can’t offer enough gratitude to our church staff, who have generously given of themselves, as the transition added additional tasks and responsibilities.

The transition has asked more of everyone in the church. You were asked into numerous interim ministry sessions, discussions with the board and transitions team, the ministerial search committee, me!

Coming back in person after the pandemic created a lot of work reinvigorating and reimagining so many of our programs and ministries that had gone at least partially dormant. And raise your hand if you have lost count of how many surveys you were asked to fill out?

I can’t tell you that we will not have any more surveys – they are one way we are able to gauge our aspirations and progress as a religious community. I CAN promise you that the need for surveys has been higher than in more normative times. Thank you for your generosity of spirit in responding them.

An interim period is also one of experimentation. It is a time of trying on new ways of doing things and new ways of being. This is at least in part to help congregations experience that there may be multiple perspectives on any given area of church life and many ways of living out transformative religion.

So, for instance, you have experienced experimenting with the elements of our services and the ways in which they are ordered.

You have experienced differing voices in our pulpit – the centering of voices other than white guys like me. After all, we’ve had the microphone for a while now!

Really, you have experienced at least some level of change or experimentation in so many areas of the church, and all that change can be disconcerting, can’t it? And it can also be transforming. Some things will work. Some will not, but we will learn from them all. And once again, you have approached this change with extraordinarily generous spirits.

Oh, and who’s noticed that some of our services have gone longer than usual?

The interim period has often created the need for the board, transition team, search team and others to communicate more information of consequence than usual during the worship service.

Now, even in non-transition times, our services have sometimes gone longer than an hour, during especially busy times of church life or when the religious topic requires a little more time to explore in enough depth.

During this continuing interim transition time, services of about one hour will remain what we plan for typically. The work of the transition itself can just sometimes cause variances to happen more often than usual though.

Thank you once again for the spirit of generosity you have been exercising.

My favorite generous comment about this came from someone who said to me one Sunday, “Well, I guess in the not so distant past, just the sermon in a Unitarian church could go for well over an hour. At least you shut up a lot sooner than that, Rev. Chris.”

May we also remember, as we think about diversity, that for many cultures, “making the trains run exactly on time” is just not that big a deal.

And looking back at the interim ministry report from last year, there is already a wide range of diversity among us in so many areas. As one example, we already have a variety of preferences for different styles of worship.

For instance, we have a number among us much prefer, quieter, more classical musical pieces during worship. Others, not so much. Conversely, we have many folks who love it when we rock out for our music. Others, not so much.

And yet, we are finding the spiritual generosity to do both and more under one roof, sometimes during just one service, and we have the director of music and the music team talented enough to do it all.

We can be generous enough to keep talking and keep exploring so that we find ways for each and all of us to continue to experience spiritual transformation in worship and throughout the church – maybe not despite these differences but because of them if we continue to keep our hearts in a holy place with one another.

In those many surveys I mentioned earlier, we often said that we want diversity. Diversity requires valuing our differences and allowing them to encounter one another with a generosity of spirit within which all of us accept some change so that all of us might also be transformed.

Now, I want to give you a personnel example about all of this, but in doing so, I want to emphasize that though my examples have involved music, this spiritual generosity that emerges through experiencing our differences is possible for us throughout religious life here at the church.

So, I will confess that I have this involuntary, deep-seated aversion to music being played on an organ. I think it may go back to my childhood in the tiny Southern Baptist church, where a church volunteer would play our Sunday hymns on a cheap organ, poorly. Hymns with lyrics expressing a theology I find grotesque.

I’m just guessing that might be the source. Anyway, back before the pandemic, the church used to bring in this wonderful, versatile, and talented musician. One of his many virtuoso abilities was playing the organ. And when he would play it here, I could tell how talented he was. And I could hear how soaring the music he produced. And I still couldn’t help myself. Part of me still wanted to cry out, “please don’t kill Jesus.”

But, I would watch the faces of so many folks here in the sanctuary. And I could see the emotional and transformative impact that very same music was having for them. And in that way, I could find some degree of transformation myself and muster the generosity of spirit to keep my aversion at bay. We so often discover transcendence through one another.

Well, that was more than I had thought I would talk about the church and our interim transition process. I do think it is important though, to pause every once in a while and review where we have been, where we are, and where we may be going. Even more so, I wanted you to know that you already hold within you that generosity of spirit about which we are talking about today.

So, what is this spiritual generosity of which I speak and from where does it arise? Well, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I do know that some concept of generosity of spirit is present in virtually all religions. Buddhism, for example, has the concept of dana, the letting go of attachment, which is the source of all suffering, through giving to others. In fact, for buddhism, dana is the first and prerequisite step in spiritual training or development.

A commission of our own Unitarian Universalist Association of Churches has recently recommended an update to the covenant we Unitarian Universalists within our broader faith make with one another. That recommended update is rooted in a set of spiritual values, one of which is stated,

“Generosity: 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.”

So, spiritual generosity arises when we get this strong, expansive sense of our true interconnectedness. And I believe that sense of mutuality is based at least in part on an understanding of our shared vulnerability.

I love that our call to worship earlier spoke of learning to find grace in being able to give and to receive as part of a single pattern. We need one another. We cannot develop a truly generous spirit unless we are also able to ask for help ourselves when we need it. From this perspective, generosity of spirit arises out of saying “yes” to all of life; truth; love. “Yes” to the eternal truth that our interrelationships are what is vital.

Small acts of kindness, helping one another find peace even during the hard times, like as in our story for all ages earlier or the beautiful poem Gretchen read for us, become paramount. I believe all acts of charity, to be spiritually generous, must arise from this sense of interconnectedness and shared vulnerability.

Let me close with this story I ran across of Peruvian novelist Isabel Allende, who cared for her 28 year-old daughter, Paula, who had become ill and fallen into a coma. Isabel cared for Paula for over a year. Paula eventually died in Isabel’s arms.

Isabel says that during that time, she “had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential.” She had to learn to receive her own love for her daughter, even when she couldn’t know if Paula was receiving that love. And having learned to claim her love for others as a gift to herself, she now centers her life in the ways of generosity, both large and small.

She writes, “Paralyzed and silent in her bed, my daughter Paula taught me a lesson that is now my mantra: You only have what you give. It’s by spending yourself that you become rich.”

In this “season of giving”, may our hearts be in such a holy place.

Benediction

by Rebecca Ann Parker

You must answer this question:
What will you do with your gifts?
Choose to bless the world.
The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will…
It is an act of recognition,
a confession of surprise,
a grateful acknowledgment
that in the midst of a broken world
unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Thanksgiving 2023

November 20, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave and Rev. Chris Jimmerson
November 19, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

As we enter into this season of gratitude, we’ll explore the story of Thanksgiving from some new perspectives.

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

FOR WHAT SHALL WE GIVE THANKS
by Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig

The wheel of the year has turned again.
Once more the Thanksgiving season has arrived.
How shall we sing our song of gratitude now?
For what shall we give thanks?

For this moment;
for friends near and far;
for our breath;

for love;
for courage and clarity;
for strength;
for delight;
for laughter;
for beauty;

for the tables round which we gather;
for the food we enjoy with friends,
seasoned with love and memory;

for the sun and moon and stars in the sky;
for the trees who have seen so much
and still stand proud,
stretching themselves to the sky;

for the bright voices of children;
for the wisdom of elders;
for actions that bless the world;
for hard work that makes a difference;

for music and art and celebration;
for generosity;
for compassion;
for endurance;
for joy;
for hope.

For all these things, we give thanks as we worship together.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THANKSGIVING AS A DAY OF MOURNING
Rev. Myke Johnson

In 1617, a few years before English settlers landed, an epidemic began to spread through the area that became southern New England. It likely came from British fishermen, who had been fishing off the coast for decades. By 1620, ninety to ninety-six percent of the population had died. It decimated the tribes, and left many of their villages empty.

One of those villages was Patuxet. When the English settlers arrived in Plymouth Harbor they found a cleared village with fields recently planted in corn. This was a big part of the reason they chose it for their settlement. All of the village’s people had died from the epidemic, except for Tisquantum, whom we know as Squanto. We never really hear the whole story about Squanto. We hear he taught the settlers how to plant corn and fish and hunt the local area. But how was it that he spoke English? Here’s the story as told by James W. Loewen:

As a boy, along with four Penobscots, he was probably stolen by a British captain in about 1605 and taken to England. There he probably spent nine years, two in the employ of a Plymouth merchant who later … helped him arrange a passage back to Massachusetts.

He was to enjoy home life for less than a year … In 1614, a British slave raider seized him and two dozen fellow Indians and sold them into slavery in Malaga, Spain. Squanto escaped from slavery … made his way back to England, and in 1619 talked a ship captain into taking him along [as a guide] on his next trip to Cape Cod.

Squanto walked to his home village, only to make the horrifying discovery that he was the sole member of his village still alive. All the others had perished in the epidemic two years before.

Perhaps this was why Tisquantum was willing to help the Plymouth Colony, which had settled in his people’s village. Or perhaps he was there to keep an eye on them.

The settlers, too, lost half their people during the first hard winter. There were only fifty-three settlers who survived until the harvest festival that was later declared to be the first Thanksgiving.

It was a brief moment of tentative peace. One generation later, the English settlers and the Wampanoag were at war. For many Native people in our time, the day called Thanksgiving has become a Day of Mourning, for the hundreds of years of losses suffered by their people.

Sermon

Michelle LaGrave

We are a people of many lands, you and me. Human nature being what it is, many of us have migrated from place to place over time; some of us to many places. And for those of us who have not, our ancestors surely have. These migrations may have occurred in the last few generations or centuries ago, they may have been chosen or forced, by war or political will or economic necessity or for some other reason. And if we go far enough back in time, those of us who are indigenous and those of us who are not, all migrated out of Africa. (Unless, of course, you are worshipping with us from somewhere in Africa, which is not outside the realm of possibility these days!)

As a people, united by this hour or so of worship, we have many relationships with and stories about the land on which we live, love, work, and play. I am, btw, using the word “land” intentionally. I want us to reflect, at least for a little while, on the land itself, the land you personally know, the land you have experienced, walked on, rolled on, sat on, laid down on, crawled on, travelled upon. Not the whole earth, which none of us has experienced, and not the place names and designations we know the land by, at least not yet.

Take a moment to imagine the land of your birth, the land of your growing up years. How do you know it? By its bus system or subway system? By watching it roll by from a car window? By playing in a yard, or a city park, or on a playground? By swimming in its rivers or camping in its woods? By the ways in which it provided sustenance or recreation? By the ways it required work or encouraged play? By the relationships you had with its people, your neighbors, family, and friends? How did you know the land, these places of your birth and your growing up years? Do you still know it?

I grew up in a place far to the northeast of here, a land of steep hills and small mountains with a river that flowed in the valley below; a place of seasons with summers plenty hot enough for swimming and camping and picnicking, falls filled with beautiful, vibrant, colorful leaves for raking and playing, winters with plenty of snow, every winter, for sledding and building snowmen and shoveling, and springs filled with pussywillows and colorful flowers and Easter egg hunts.

I knew the land, mostly by walking and playing upon it. I walked to school, almost every day, I walked to the homes of my family and friends, to my church and the library and corner stores and most anywhere I wanted to go. Sometimes, I rode my bike. I knew all the shortcuts, the paths where the roads didn’t go, the stairs cut into the sides of the hills, the bricks of one seemingly magical road, the playgrounds and parks and athletic fields, and I knew who most of my neighbors were. I knew the land and, I daresay, the land knew me. The land shaped me into who I am today. I am grateful for this land, the land of my birth.

The land. [big breath} Thinking about the land, especially these days, isn’t a simple trip down memory lane or a nice little hit of nostalgia. It can get complicated. And it’s a deeply spiritual exercise. The place I am from is called Naugatuck, Connecticut. I love the names of my hometown and home state. Naugatuck, Connecticut. Can you hear it? The names are not English. They come from the Algonquian language group. Naugatuck means lone tree and it was probably the name of a small Paugusset village along the banks of the Naugatuck River. What I love about these names, is that they reflect one small piece of authentic heritage that colonization did not completely wipe away. As a child, I liked to wonder about these people and what their lives were like before my ancestors came to live on their land. These names are a small, tiny, token, but I love to say them because they feel to me like an honoring of the land and its people from long before white folk like me learned about land acknowledgements.

For those of you who are new to the practice, land acknowledgements are statements made by non-indigenous groups or institutions recognizing the people on whose ancestral lands the group lives, works, and plays. They are not meant to be empty statements made after a quick Google search, but rather meaning-full statements that coincide with a group’s commitment to doing the work of repair and reconciliation. This is deep spiritual work that requires a long process of both self-examination and study. (Yes, it’s a little too easy to get wrapped up in the study and learning aspects of this work and neglect the self-examination piece.)

Here, in the place now called Austin, Texas, we might begin a land acknowledgement by expressing gratitude to the Tonkawa, Jumanos, Coahuiltecan, Comanche, Apache, and all others on whose ancestral lands we now, live, work, play, and worship for their stewardship of these lands. We might then study the history and the prehistory of these lands and the people who ranged upon them as well as the current context in which they live. We might then engage in trust building and relationship building to begin the work of repair and reconciliation. And if you and your family is indigenous to this area, you might begin to consider, if you haven’t already, what it is you might need or want from such a process.

That is in addition to doing our personal work, of course; work that can look a variety of ways depending on our individual identities. For me, this work feels especially complicated at this time of year as I prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving. One thread of my family story is that I am descended from Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower. One of whom, my many greats (11 to be exact) grandfather was William Brewster, the spiritual leader of their little congregation. I won’t pretend that I am done doing my personal work around this family history. I have been working on it for years now. One thing I can share with you that has been helpful is to consciously shift to a post-modern way of thinking and remember that there is no single truth. There are many truths. One truth is that the Pilgrims represent the beginning wave of colonialism on these lands and all that is inherently wrong with that. Another truth is that the Pilgrims represent the beginning wave of freedom of religion in what eventually became the United States of America and they risked their lives to do it. These are two of the many, many gifts that I received from my ancestors – one story has not been told often or understood well enough and the other has been told too often and in too simplified a fashion, one story requires of me repair and reconciliation, the other requires gratitude. While neither story can be told easily, both can be done joyfully.

However you plan to spend the actual day of Thanksgiving, I encourage you to spend some time in spiritual practice and personal reflection this coming week. There is much to think and to wonder about. What is your personal relationship to the lands on which you live, work, and play now? What is your ancestral story in relationship to this land? What comes next?

Whatever that is, let us keep gratitude at the center. No matter our individual stories, we all, we all. .. drink from wells we did not dig and are warmed by fires we did not build. And remember, that while that early harvest celebration in 1621 was not the first, and while no one knew how soon after things would go very wrong, that one Thanksgiving feast was celebrated all together, in peace, and with much gratitude. May we learn to do so again. With blessings on your holiday.

Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Centered Relationships are Key

November 13, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
November 12, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

As Unitarian Universalists, we work towards building the Beloved Community, a community in which everyone’s needs are centered and met and where equity is enshrined in all we do. As we work towards this larger and universal goal we also do the work of practicing the Beloved Community in our own space. Let’s explore the role of relationships in our practice of the Beloved Community and how those relationships have the power to transform us both individually and collectively.

Chalice Lighting

As we kindle this the flame, we honor and remember
Those who have passed into the mystery.
Their brightness lives on in our vision;
their courage lives on in our commitments;
and their love continues to bless the world through us.

Call to Worship

ANYONE’S MINISTRY
Rev. Gordon McKeeman

Ministry is

a quality of relationship between and among human beings that beckons forth hidden possibilities;

inviting people into deeper, more constant, more reverent relationship with the world and with one another;

carrying forward a long heritage of hope and liberation that has dignified and informed the human venture over many centuries;

being present with, to, and for others in their terrors and torments; in their grief, misery and pain; knowing that those feelings are our feelings, too;

celebrating the triumphs of the human spirit, the miracles of birth and life, the wonders of devotion and sacrifice;

witnessing to life-enhancing values;

speaking truth to power;

speaking for human dignity and equity, for compassion and aspiration;

believing in life in the presence of death;

struggling for human responsibility against principalities and structures that ignore humaneness and become instruments of death.

It is all these and much, much more than all of them, present in the wordless, the unspoken, the ineffable.

It is speaking and living the highest we know and living with the knowledge that it is never as deep, or as wide or a high as we wish. Whenever there is a meeting that summons us to our better selves, wherever

our lostness is found,

our fragments are united,

our wounds begin healing,

our spines stiffen and

our muscles grow strong for the task,

there is ministry.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

ONE LOVE
Rev. Dr. Hope Johnson

We are one,
A diverse group
Of proudly kindred spirits
Here not by coincidence–
But because we choose to journey-together.

We are active and proactive
We care deeply
We live our love, as best we can.

We ARE one
Working, Eating, Laughing,
Playing, Singing, Storytelling, Sharing and Rejoicing.
Getting to know each other,
Taking risks
Opening up.
Questioning, Seeking, Searching…
Trying to understand…
Struggling…
Making Mistakes
Paying Attention…
Asking Questions
Listening…
Living our Answers
Learning to love our neighbors
Learning to love ourselves.

Apologizing and forgiving with humility
Being forgiven, through Grace.

Creating the Beloved Community-Together
We are ONE.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

All Souls

November 5, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
November 5, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This is the time of year when spiritual traditions around the world, including our own, remember and honor the people from whom we came, our ancestors. This year we will focus on the importance of naming traditions while remembering those ancestors who have helped to shape us into who we are today.

Chalice Lighting

As we kindle this the flame, we honor and remember
Those who have passed into the mystery.
Their brightness lives on in our vision;
their courage lives on in our commitments;
and their love continues to bless the world through us.

Call to Worship

UNITED BY STORY AND BOUND BY LOVE
by Andrea Hawkins-Kamper

Gather we now into this space, this time when the Wheel turns and the Veil shatters.

Gather we now to remember, to grieve, to prophesy, to complete our harvests before the long Dark comes.

Gather we now to tell the Old Stories and sing the Old Songs, to be as we have always been -the Voice of our people eternal.

Gather we now to celebrate that which was, that which is, and that which will be. Gather we now, as we have always done, united by Story and bound by love.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

Image of a painting on the screen
ABBE MOSES THE BLACK
by Mark Dukes

My spiritual ancestor Abbe Moses the Black lived 1600 years ago. He used to be the leader of a gong of thieves. One day while hiding from the law he met a group of monks who lived simple, prayerful lives in the deserts of Egypt. He decided to join them.

In my picture he is talking to his gang about his newfound experience of joy in doing good. The thieves on the left drop their knives and decide to change their lives. The thieves on the right haven’t decided yet. later, they will drop their weapons, change their violent lives, and follow their leader, Abba Moses.

I’m one of the gang. Can you find me? Instead of a knife, I have a paintbrush. It’s the magic of my paintbrush that enables me to travel back in time.

Above us are two more saints. Tekla Haymanot is a legendary Ethiopian saint. Mahatma Gandhi is an Indian saint who lived in modern times. I put him with Tekla because I thought Gandhi would like a ride on a magic carpet of light. Wouldn’t you?

Sermon

Almost as old as time itself are the tales of this time of year; a time when the veil between this world and the next thins and spirits of the dead and otherworldly creatures cross over. This is a time of liminality; a time of in-betweenness – between summer and winter, between light and dark, between this world and another. This is the time of All Hallow’s Eve, Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, All Souls’ Day, Samhain …

I begin with an old Celtic tale, from a county in Ireland, from which rises an old mountain in the shape of a sleeping woman, and on top of which still rests an ancient burial cairn, near some rocks which naturally take the shape of a doorway. There once was a young man, a hunter and a warrior, in between his childhood and his inheritance, named Fionn, which means “fair”, for his hair which had turned unnaturally white at a young age. One long ago Samhain, an otherworldly creature emerged from the cairn and stole a pig that was roasting over a fire. Fionn chased the creature and killed him with a spear just as the creature was slipping through a doorway back to the Otherworld. Finn’s thumb was caught in the door as it was shut. He pulled his thumb out and because it hurt, he sucked on it. Because his thumb had been in the Otherworld, Finn gained a great wisdom.

It is said that this tale is meant to explain how people gained wisdom from the ancestors.

Whether this tale comes from your own tradition or not, it is simply one of many the world over, which speaks of the wisdom of the ancestors. And, we all do have ancestors, some who are known to us and some who are not, some who come from our family lines, some who come from our cultural lineages, and some who come from our own, shared, living tradition – our Unitarian and Universalist forebears. There is a great wisdom that come to all of us from our ancestors, and from the living elders we have known in our lives.

In this season of liminality, many of us choose to honor our ancestors by creating altars and visiting graves, by placing photos, and food, and flowers, and by telling stories. I encourage you to engage in a spiritual practice of honoring the dead in whatever ways feel appropriate to you and your family and also, for all of us, to take some time to reflect on the wisdom we have gained from the ancestors and to share it with each other.

While some of that wisdom is fairly easy to hear, easy to take in, easy to apply to our lives, some is not. Some of that wisdom is gained by wrestling with our heritages. What can we learn from the ways in which our ancestors, intentionally or unintentionally oppressed others? Were oppressed by others? For me, in my direct family line, I have both Pilgrims and Pirates and I’m not always sure which heritage is more difficult to wrestle with. A beloved mentee, not so long ago celebrated Trans Power by holding a vigil and creating an altar to honor the transcestors. She has now become one of them. Her name was, is Audrey Gale Hall.

We do not only learn from, gain wisdom from, our ancestors. We also are the ancestors. While we are still living our lives, and beginning at any age, is the best time to think about our own legacies. What legacy do we wish to leave behind? What wisdom would we like to leave behind? How would we like to be remembered? BE THAT! One of our shared spiritual ancestors, the Rev. William Ellery Channing, once said: “May your life preach more loudly than your lips.” How wilt how does YOUR life preach?

Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction

INSPIRED BY OUR ANCESTORS
by Leia Durland-Jones

For those who came before us,
we offer gratitude and thanks.
May their memories be a blessing.
May we feel surrounded by their love.
As we go forth from this time and place,
let us be inspired by their courage,
their wisdom, and their dreams.
let us honor them by doing the work
of living boldly, loving mightily,
and creating heaven on earth.

Amen and blessed be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Fear and Flourishing

October 30, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
October 29, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

So often, we think of fear as a feeling to avoid. Why then, do we also sometimes revel in it – like during this time of Halloween or through horror movies, extreme sports, or scary amusement park rides? We will examine how fear is probably necessary for our survival and how our response to it can either sabotage our well-being or enrich it. In a world that can so often seem frightening, how might a spiritual practice of listening to our fear turn that fear toward flourishing?

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

I WILL NOT DIE AN UNLIVED LIFE
Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

BELOVED IS WHERE WE BEGIN
– Jan Richardson (from Circle of Grace)

If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.

Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.

Do not go
without letting it echo
In your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.

I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching of sun
or the fall
of the night.

But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.

I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.

I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:

Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.

Sermon

Well, here we are, just a plain ole regular Sunday service. Nothing unusual happening.

Nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear. What?

Oh, right. It’s the Sunday before Halloween. We have little ones dressed as ghosts and goblins running around. As well as a few adults. But, other than some irregular attire, nothing else major going on.

Well, there is that whole vote thing happening this afternoon.

If you are visiting with us this morning, I should explain that the members of the church will gather after the service today to vote on whether to call a new settle minister. The candidate for that being me.

Now, some folks have shared that they are feeling at least a bit apprehensive this morning. And that’s OK.

I’m right there with you.

I love this church, and I love this ministry.

We can let that apprehension inform us though that something of consequence is happening in the life of this church and our faith.

And knowing that, if we go into this afternoon informed by our love for this church and this faith, no matter what happens, we will all be OK.

“There will be an answer.”

I wanted to start by getting that out there, because ya’ll need to know that I am TERRIBLE at the elephant in the room thing.

Maybe because I grew up in a culture that discouraged verbalizing uncomfortable issues, these days, I am no good any more at leaving important matters left unspoken, even if speaking them can sometimes be scary.

Our topic today is fear and flourishing, so it felt only fitting to go ahead and get that out there.

So, now let’s talk some about fear on this Sunday before Halloween.

In his inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself … “

Now, even though I personally am a great fan of FDR, my hope this morning is to convince you that FDR was wrong about that.

I know, blasphemy, right? Bear with me.

You see, while I agree that depending upon our response to it, fear can either paralyze us or lead us down perilous pathways, I also think that paying attention to our fear in a centered, mindful way, can set us on a journey toward flourishing.

Fear serves an evolutionary (and perhaps, thereby spiritual) purpose in our lives. Ignoring or suppressing it can lead us into harm’s way.

Fear is centered in the older parts of our brain, from long ago days when we humans were much more subject to predators and environmental extremes. It helped us protect ourselves by generating an automatic and autonomic response.

When we feel fear, that older, subconscious part of our brain, largely the amygdala, causes a number of stress hormones to be released into our body, our heart rate and breathing to quicken, our blood pressure to increase, our blood flow to supercharge our limbs.

In other words, without even thinking about it, we are ready to start throwing punches or run for our lives!

The problem is that in today’s world these automatic responses that got embedded into our unconscious so long ago – fight, flight, freeze or fawn – these responses can work against us these days if we just engage in them reactively, without thinking about them, without choosing how we respond.

Here’s something that happened to me that both illustrates how fear can be extremely valuable, perhaps even lifesaving, and that contains examples of how I went through every one of those four fear responses!

When I was about 19 years old, I went to dinner one evening with a group of my friends from the Lamar University theatre department in Beaumont, TX.

We went to Bennigan’s – gourmet eatin’ in Beaumont back in those days.

All of the guys in our group except one were gay. We were theatre students.

I don’t think we were particularly inappropriate that evening, though we may have gotten loud and obnoxious. We were college aged theatre students.

When we walked out to the parking lot to go back to our cars, a group of guys who were several years older than us and much bigger than most of us followed us out and quickly surrounded us. They were yelling gay slurs at us. They accused one of my friends of having flirted with them.

My first instinct was to try to run to the car, the flight instinct, but we were surrounded.

One of them grabbed my friend’s shirt and raised a clenched fist in the air as if to strike my friend.

Without even thinking, I moved toward them, the fight response. A couple of them grabbed me and pushed me down over the hood of car. I started to struggle, but then I remember thinking that we needed to try to calm this down or thing might get really bad.

I stopped struggling and froze – the freeze response.

The guy who had grabbed my friend snarled at him, “Apologize you … and called him another gay slur I will not repeat”.

My friend said quietly, “I’m sorry”.

After a moment, I said, “We didn’t mean anything.”

That was really hard. That fawning. It felt terrible and humiliating because we hadn’t done anything wrong.

It seemed to calm them a bit though.

More people were coming out of the restaurant, and they finally released us with a few more grumbled warnings and slurs.

Later, as they drove away, I saw rifles mounted in the back window of one of their pickup trucks.

Oh, and my friend they had accused of flirting with them was the one straight guy.

Fear may have served its purpose and saved us that evening.

Now, it may also be instructive to think about common childhood fears, some which may be innate. Loud noises. Large animals. Monsters under the bed. Or the common phobias. Fear of heights. Fear of spiders or snakes. Claustrophobia.

It is fascinating that so many of these represent things that actually could cause us harm – loud noises can mean a storm is coming or a locomotive bearing down us; large animals, spiders and snakes can sometimes be dangerous; we can get hurt if we fall from a large height or get trapped in an enclosed space.

Those monsters under the bed might be warning of threats lurking just outside of our awareness.

So we need these fears, even though there is also this risk of them becoming exaggerated and taking over.

In fact, being without fear is dangerous itself, as a group of scientists who have been studying a woman I will call Samantha have documented.

Samantha has a rare condition which causes calcium deposits in her amygdala so that she no longer has a fear response, though she still feels other emotions.

Samantha has been held at knifepoint twice, gunpoint twice and was nearly beaten to death as result of not have our built in danger warning system called fear. She has had to be restrained from playing with poisonous snakes.

Samantha tells the story of walking to the store one time when a man beckoned her to sit beside him on park bench.

Having no fear response, she did.

He grabbed her, held a knife to her throat and said, “I am going to cut you.”

Absent any fear, she replIed, “Go ahead. I’ll be coming back, and I’ll haunt your ass.”

Samantha’s lack of fear has gotten her into dangerous circumstances. It has also sometimes helped her survive those circumstances, similar to how being able to manage and channel our fear might benefit all of us.

In fact, scientists have discovered that Samantha also does not experience trauma, which in some ways might be thought of as a tremendous fear response that fails to turn back off.

This has led to using alternative therapies for trauma that help diminish ongoing fear, like the meditation we did earlier.

Which matters, because not being able to manage our fear responses can be dangerous to us also, as writer Shel Silverstein described in his poem called “Fear”:

Barnabus Browning
Was scared of drowning,
So he never would swim
Or get into a boat
Or take a bath
Or cross a moat.
He just sat day and night
With his door locked tight
And the windows nailed down,
Shaking with fear
That a wave might appear,
And cried so many tears
That they filled up the room
And he drowned.

We can’t allow ourselves to drown in our fears AND neither can we deny our fears or try to heedlessly just fight our way through them.

A Buddhist Wisdom parable tells of a young warrior who has been told by her instructor she must go into battle with fear.

When the day comes, she approaches fear with respect and asks permission for the battle and asks how she might stand a chance against him.

Fear replies, “My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.”

In that way, the student warrior learned how to dance with fear rather than try to defeat it.

I love that image of dancing with fear not trying to battle it.

I think that sometimes that’s why we find ways to revel in our fear responses like extreme sports, horror movies, scary amusement park rides – Halloween!

We are learning to dance with fear in smaller steps with less risk involved, similar to how we often treat phobias by starting with small doses of exposure to them.

And so much of what we do together as a religious community also helps us dance through our fears communally.

Our rituals, our rites, our spiritual practices, the community of care and support we nurture.

I love that in our story for all ages, the witch asked for help. They ran off the dragon together.

We are not alone. We can ask one another for help. We can lean on each other.

Let’s face it, on top of all that we encounter in our individual lives, we face some very legitimate communal fears these days.

A climate crisis that seems to accelerate with every sunrise. Mass shootings. Two simultaneous wars, one of which threatens to engulf an entire region and potentially spawn violence well beyond it. Another waged on one side by a malevolent narcissist with nuclear weapons.

A U.S. political system plagued with an ever growing strain of authoritarianism – a quarter of our public now believing violence to achieve their political ends is justified.

And don’t get me started on the short sighted, mean spirited, theocratic harm and injustice we are witnessing here in our own state.

Well, I could go on. And probably will sometime very soon.

There is a lot in our world right now that is harrowing because it is telling us that something important, something consequential is going on.

And so together, we can help each other listen to what that fear is telling us without letting it tell us what to do.

Together, we can counter the dragons of war, greed, injustice, oppression and hate, with courage, solidarity, and love.

Together we can dance through our fear and show up over and over again for justice.

Together, we can meld our story for all ages and our anthem from earlier, proclaiming to those dragons, Iggety, ziggety, zaggety, zoom – We won’t back down.

Together, we need not fear even fear itself.

My beloveds, we do not journey through the valley of the shadow alone. We have one another. We have an entire religious community.

We are rooted in a sacred web of all existence, nourished by a great river of love which flows through it.

We are Beloved.

And from within that interconnectedness, something divine emanates. On this, just a plain ole regular Sunday.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

History, Heritage, Hope

October 22, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
October 22, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In life, we inherit so much of who we are and who we may become, just as we do in our Unitarian Universalist faith and in our church. And that heritage can be a mixed blessing. Hope may be found in knowing that we can find ways to let go of that which denies our collective liberation and build upon that which opens us to life-giving, creative possibilities.

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

I became aware of the fateful links between me and my ancestors. I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forebearers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.

– Carl Jung

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

There is a saying that has been popular in the past few years: “I am my ancestors’ wildest dream.” I love this idea, and I have put seeds in that soil… But there are also, in my lineage, ancestors for whom I am likely their worst nightmare. A Black, queer, pansexual, poly-curious, unmarried, childless, defiant, feminist, post-capitalist, Earth lover, constantly thinking about what might be the most revolutionary next step I could take. Yes, I know there are ancestors who would feel they had failed in their work because I exist.

But what I know, which maybe these ancestors have some sense of now, is that the impulse to dominate, and control, and harm, and deny the truth of divergent human experiences is rooted in self-loathing … I have to honor that those ancestors lived in a time of less knowing, less connectedness, and less possibility. I have to honor that their lives are crucial to my callings. I pass my current experiences of freedom and delight back to the ancestors who did not have access to rest, or agency over their time. I pass my current experiences of self-love and radical self-acceptance back to my ancestorsÉ

– adrienne maree brown

Sermon

History

Heritage.

They play such strong roles in who we become and how we act in the world.

His-story. His. Already a heritage of patriarchy shows up within our very word for the story of what built us.

Our heritage, like our DNA, provides building blocks from which we construct ourselves.

Here’s an example from my own his-story.

I’ve shared the story before of how my maternal grandparents were a great source of love and care in my life and how they welcomed my spouse Wayne as a much loved member of the family.

And yet,
they were Southern Baptist and of a different generation.

They were from, as our reading earlier noted, “a time of less knowing… “

So, when Wayne and I were with my grandparents, they and we never openly discussed that we were a couple, and of course, back then, legal marriage equality was only a distant dream.

Even though they loved us both greatly, and we them, this vital aspect of our lives was left unspoken.

Until my grandmother was nearing the end of her life, and we were visiting her for what turned out to be the last time she would let herself to be put into a hospital.

As we said our goodbyes and prepared to leave, she took us both by the hand, locked her eyes with mine and said, “Take care of each other.”

In that brief moment, her love broke through what had been left implicit and made it explicit.

She gave to me and to Wayne an inheritance of limitless loving given to her by her ancestors. She broke through that heritage of “less knowing”.

And so I come from a heritage of taking care of one another and one where love was demonstrated, both verbally and physically.

I think that may be at least in part a source of my calling to ministry and before that an adulthood spent mostly in non-profit work and anti-oppression anti-racism, social justice activism.

Yet,
I also come from a heritage wherein my grandfather was a deacon in a southern baptist church, and there were norms against expressing uncomfortable truths aloud.

Significant aspects of our lives had to be left unacknowledged. And, though it has often been hard for me to reconcile myself with emotionally, I also hold a heritage of patriarchy and racism and anti-LGBTQism and so many other isms handed down from within my family, as well as the community, and, indeed, the country in which I grew up.

So, while my family story involved a legacy of offering care, that care sometimes came with unspoken requirements – like when they would invite anyone to Christmas dinner if they found out they were spending the holiday alone, and yet a silent code required everyone stay in their place according to race, gender, orientation, etc.

As I have gone about the work of social justice and ministry, I have had to persistently unlearn an inheritance of privilege hierarchies, supremacy cultures.

I suspect it is this way for most if not all of us.

We all have to deal with “impersonal karma”, the “things left unfinished” that Carl Jung referenced in our call to worship; “the impulse to deny the truth of diverse human experiences” that Adrienne Maree Brown highlighted in our reading.

We all come from a long story that runs through multiple generations, and our story is a large part of who we are.

We can change the plot though.

We can draw from our heritage that which creates more love, more justice, more fulfillment in our lives and in our world. We can choose to leave behind legacies of pain and harm.

This same dichotomy of inheritances has also been handed down to us by our Unitarian Universalist ancestors, as well as those of this church.

Just as a few examples, here in the U.S., both our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors were early supporters of abolition, women’s suffrage and rights, new ways of educating our children, and a host of social services for people in need.

They were among the first predominantly white denominations to ordain women and African American Ministers.

Yet,
the book “The Iowa Sisterhood” tells the stories of Unitarian and Universalist women who forged difficult but ultimately successful ministries in the great plains states of the 19th century but were never accepted by many of their male colleagues.

In fact, they entered these small struggling, then frontier parishes to begin with because they could not get placements in the more established churches of New England.

Likewise, “Black Pioneers in a White Denomination” reveals the tale of the Unitarian minister Ethelred Brown, who left Jamaica to attend our Meadville Unitarian seminary in the early 20th century, even though he had been told by that seminary that he would be unlikely to find a placement in any of their virtually all white churches.

That turned out to be true.

So, Brown founded an African American Unitarian church in Harlem that came to be highly successful, only to find himself kicked out by the Unitarian Association because he was too radical – which meant he was a socialist who dared to demand true equality for black folks.

He was only reinstated after he threatened a lawsuit.

Our great Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker, was an abolitionist, even at a time when some other Unitarians and Universalists supported slavery.

He kept a gun in his pulpit because he and his church were helping slaves escape to the North and Canada.

He preached thunderously against slavery and said that “Slavery tramples on the constitution… “

Yet
he also said some terribly racist things that I will not repeat here today.

A legacy of less knowing.

More recently, after the the Unitarians and the Universalists merged, we UUs have been at the forefront of civil rights, women’s rights, environmentalism, LGBTQ rights and so many other movements for social justice.

And yet,
we have suffered repeated incidences of racism, misogyny, and the like within our own institutions.

In 1968, a group of black Unitarians and their white supporters walked out of our Unitarian Universalist national General Assembly over disagreements about whether the Black Affairs Council would be funded and structured in a way that empowered them to manage their own affairs.

While this became known as the “Black Empowerment Controversy”, perhaps it might be better remembered as the “White Supremacy Culture Affair”.

More recently, in 2017, the president of our unitarian universalist association and other upper staff resigned after a controversy surrounding a BIPOC final candidate for one of our regional lead positions having been told she was “not a good fit” for the position.

A white male hired another white male for the position instead.

These are just a few examples of a dichotomy within our UU heritage.

Likewise the story of our church contains tales of great commitment to our faith and our values, as well as some challenges along the way.

Going all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century, this church was active in women’s suffrage, feminism, and civil rights.

We helped fight for the desegregation of Barton Springs pool and eventually all pools in Austin.

Throughout its history, the church has supported numerous charities.

We have been active in LGBTQ rights from very early on.

From its beginnings, we were active in the struggle against AIDS. We helped launch two of the other UU churches in our area, as well our U-Bar-U retreat center in the hill country.

Over the years, our church members have carried our values into leadership roles they have played in the arts, higher education, music, medicine, poetry, theology, politics, well, you name it.

One of our resident historians, church member Luther Elmore, discovered that former Texas Governor, Ann Richards, was a member of this church. She served as either board secretary or board treasurer, no one can seem to remember which, but we have inarguable proof that she signed the membership book in 1969.

Philosopher Charles Harthshorne, one of the major contributors to process theology, which has become a sustaining worldview for many UUs, including me, was also a longterm member of this church.

So we are rooted in an ancestry of justice making, honest theology, and human equality.

Yet,
just for example, the church only called its first female settled minister, Meg Barnhouse, in 2011 (we’d had a couple of female interim ministers before that).

But hey, at least after that the church went big – bringing on several more female ministers and two more LGBTQ ministers besides Meg since then.

And like our larger UU faith, we also have had our fair share of controversies over the years.

I had the pleasure of visiting one of our long-term church members who lived to over 100 years old not long before she died.

She got to recounting church stories while we visited.

At one point she stopped, looked at me and said, “Take it from me. I’ve been with that church for a long time and it is one of the best religious communities anywhere, and I argued with those people more than anyone else in my life.”

Anyway, again, these are just a few examples.

If you want to know more about your church heritage, our other resident historian, Leo Collas, has posted QR codes like the one on that column throughout the church.

Look for small signs with an Easter egg printed on them.

And again, like me with my family, we can learn from when our heritage has sometimes failed to live up to our professed values.

And at the same time, we can also receive with great gratitude the commitment to progress, justice and human dignity our ancestors bequeathed to us.

I’ll close by noting that, of course, we live in a country in which our ancestors have also left us this dichotomy of inheritances.

A country about which attorney, activist, and commentator Van Jones wrote, “From the very beginning of this country, America has been two things, not one. We have our founding reality and our founding dream. And the two are not the same.”

So, our heritage includes slavery, racism, violence, subjugation of native Americans and the theft of their lands, voting disenfranchisement, imperialism, and the denial of the very existence of LGBTQ folks, to name just a very few.

A his-story told not to just center males, but that has also tried to erase the contributions and perspectives of those with different heritages – again, women, BIPOC folks, LGBTQ folks, and more erased these from the formative stories of our country.

And yet,
our heritage also includes that founding dream articulated by our ancestors – that beautiful vision of the self-evident truth that we are all created equal.

So, once again, we can draw from our heritage that which creates more love and more justice and leave behind legacies of pain and harm.

We inherit a heritage of racism. We inherit a heritage of patriarchy.

We inherit a heritage of hetero-supremacy and gender orthodoxy. We inherit a heritage of enforced and reinforced income and wealth inequality and so many other inequalities upon inequalities.

We inherit a heritage of often violent and even lethal oppression and injustice.

And yet,
we also inherent a heritage of “all people are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

We inherit a heritage of “we shall overcome” and “I have a dream.”

We inherit a heritage of suffragettes and Stonewall and “make love not war” and feminism and ACT-UP and womanism and Occupy Wall Street and “Save Our Planet” and Black Lives Matter and Me Too and Rock the Vote and on and on and on.

We inherit a heritage of love and justice and inherent worth and dignity for all.

So the question becomes, what parts of our heritage shall we pick up and pass on?

What of our heritage shall we amplify and what shall we leave behind?

Right now,
in this moment,
and in all of our days,
for some future someones,
we are the ancestors.

What heritage will leave them? What inheritance shall we become?

Our choices can create seeds of hope for future generations. May that be our-story.

A-women. Amen. Blessed be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Celebration Sunday

October 16, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

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Rev. Michelle LaGrave
October 15, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Generosity shows up in our lives in so many places and so many ways. Today we celebrate the generosity that is present in this church and which enables us to do the work of nourishing souls, transforming lives, and doing justice.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice for all who are here, and all who are not:
For all who have ever walked through our doors,
for those who may yet find this spiritual home,
and for those, we can’t even yet imagine.
For each of us and for usalll, may this flame burn warm and bright.

Call to Worship

LETTING GO
Jay Wolin

Are we a people of holding on or of letting go?
Holding on to rigid ideas or
Letting go and opening our minds and our hearts, to something new;
Holding on to certainty of how things should be or
Letting go and living with the uncertainty of new ways of being in the world;
Holding on to what makes us comfortable or
Letting go so we may grow which can be uncomfortable;
Holding on to what makes us safe or
Letting go to make room to help others feel safe?
With this flame, this symbol of our religion,
let it be a symbol of burning up the ties that hold us back from being our true self and reaching our true potential;
let it be a symbol of lighting a new way for us into a better tomorrow;
and let it be a symbol of letting go
Because holding on too long and too tightly is never good for the soul.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

The story goes of an old woman who found a precious gem in the river…
by Rev. Gretchen Haley

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Hearts Broken Open

October 9, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
October 8, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our lives are filled with moments of amazing grace, which break our hearts wide open with compassion for our fellow beings. We may not know why these moments come and go; even so we can meet them with gratitude together.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice to affirm that new light is ever waiting to break through to enlighten our ways. New truth is ever waiting to break through to illuminate our minds. New love is ever waiting to break through to warm our hearts. May we be open to this light and to the rich possibilities that it brings us.

Call to Worship

Come into this space, this sacred space, this sanctuary. Whether your sanctuary is here or at home or some other on-line space. Draw in its beauty as if drawing in a deep breath. Draw in its peace as if drawing in a deep breath and come, come into this space with hearts open, hearts ready to receive, hearts ready to give. Let us begin.

– Rev. Michelle LaGrave

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE SOUND OF THE GENUINE
By Howard Thurman

If I were to ask you what is the thing that you desire most in life this afternoon, you would say a lot of things off the top of your head, most of which you wouldn’t believe but you would think that you were saying the things that I thought you ought to think that you should say.

But I think that if you were stripped to whatever there is in you that is literal and irreducible, and you tried to answer that question, the answer may be something like this: I want to feel that I am thoroughly and completely understood so that now and then I can take my guard down and look out around me and not feel that I will be destroyed with my defenses down. I want to feel completely vulnerable, completely naked, completely exposed and absolutely secure.

This is what you look for in your children when you have them, this is what you look for in your husband if you get one. That I can run the risk of radical exposure and know that the eye that beholds my vulnerability will not step on me. That I can feel secure in my awareness of the active presence of my own idiom in me.

So as I live my life then, this is what I am trying to fulfill. It doesn’t matter whether I become a doctor, lawyer, housewife. I’m secure because I hear the sound of the genuine in myself and having learned to listen to that, I can become quiet enough, still enough, to hear the sound of the genuine in you.

Sermon

I enter the trauma room and stand off to the side, watching. A young man, barely a man, lies before me on a stretcher. He is combative, fighting with the medical staff about having his pants taken off, demanding the two police officers in the room be removed, and refusing to give his name or any information about what happened to him. I watch as he alternates between fighting and yelling with the staff and curling over on his side and crying about how much it hurts. He was found, by police, lying in a snowbank; a victim of assault. Not much is known, yet, though he is clearly injured on one side. His appearance; young, male, ears and tongue pierced, arm tattooed; and his manner; refusing to give his name or story in front of the police, his anger and combativeness toward the medical staff; give rise to a myriad of possible labels and stories, none of them flattering. Then he turns on his side once more, curls up into a ball, and cries about the pain. My heart breaks open. A part of me knows this young man could be … a gangbanger, a person accustomed to being in trouble with the law, an innocent victim, or a thousand other things.

But none of that matters now. The possible labels and stories have fallen away. All I can see now is a young boy; crying, in pain, and needing comfort. My heart has broken open. I move closer, encourage him to breathe, and rub his head in comfort. His chaplain is there. Someone who cares, not just about his body and its broken condition; but about his feelings and his spirit, which have also been broken. He has been seen and his need for emotional comfort and spiritual healing has been acknowledged.

Years ago, I worked as a chaplain resident in an intensive clinical pastoral education program. The hospital where I served is a Level 1 trauma center and contains the state’s only burn unit. It is located in a city filled with violent crime and gang activity. Patients seen cover a wide range of diagnoses; from gunshot wounds and stabbings to appendicitis; from cancer treatments and life-threatening burns to dehydration or frostbite and they cover all ages, from the not-yet-born to elders dying in hospice suites. The program itself is demanding even, at times, grueling. Residents are there to learn how to do pastoral care, in all of its forms, well. Eventually, they move on to churches and hospices, hospitals and synagogues; wherever they are called and feel the call. Meanwhile, the most is made of their time in the program; work-weeks range from 60 to 64 hours; some shifts lasting as long as 28 hours at a time. Written work and assignments are in addition to those hours. My aim in telling you all of this is to explain how easy it is to become jaded in such a setting. It takes a significant amount of dedication and commitment from anyone who chooses to do a residency. And I will admit, there were times when I questioned my own levels of dedication and commitment, especially after a long and sleep-deprived night. But … this night and this patient I just spoke of was not one of those times.

Though I eventually found out his name and that he had been beaten by several guys who he is going to “get” someday; I never did get the chance to talk with him and find out who he really is as a person and what his story was about. The next hour or so had been spent alternating between resisting staff and their attempts at medical care and allowing himself to be comforted and soothed by the chaplain. Eventually, he fell asleep, from sheer exhaustion, and for several hours. I did not see him again, though his presence remains with me still, for my heart had been broken open.

I do not know how or why these moments of broken-openness come and go, just that they do. I consider these moments of broken-openness to be moments of seeing, of truly seeing, or “essentially seeing” as Mark Nepo has termed it or “the sound of the genuine” as Howard Thurman has so eloquently described. I consider these moments of heart-broken-openness to be moments of amazing grace.

Amazing Grace. There is a story behind the song; one which you have probably heard. It goes like this … John Newton was a slave trader, who after surviving a horrific storm, became suddenly wracked with guilt about his chosen profession. Newton immediately turned his ship back to Africa, freed all his slaves, and, as a newly-converted Christian, wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace”. Now, as heart-warming as that story sounds, it is unlikely to be a story Newton himself would recognize. That story is really the legend behind the song. It does not reflect the sound of the genuine John Newton.

So today, I am going to tell you a different story; a different story about the same person and one, hopefully, John Newton would better recognize. This one is a story about a young boy frequently in trouble for disobeying his father, who grew into a young man impressed in the British navy. Of a deserter who was caught, publicly stripped and beaten, then demoted to the lowest rank. Of a slave trader brought back to life – by slaves sneaking him food from their own small allowance. Of a slave trader locked up by his own master – who went without food, shelter, or clothing – for many hours at a time; yet, still continued to trade slaves after he was rescued.

It is the story of a man who drank and swore too much, who derided Christians, who was disliked by his fellow crew yet was saved by them when he nearly went overboard in a drunken stupor. It is the story of a man who twice, by two different captains on two different ships, avoided drowning when he was sent on a last-minute errand. It is the story of a man who got shot in the hat, lived through at least two tropical diseases, one mutiny, and three slave revolts.

It is also the story of a 23 year old who converted to Christianity- yet continued to trade slaves. Of a 39 year old who became a priest, of a 47 year old who wrote a hymn, of a 60 year old who finally began to speak out against slavery – and continued to do so for 22 more years. John Newton’s story is NOT an easily-reducible story (as no one’s really is); and it is NOT the story of legend. John Newton’s story IS the story of a human life, of painfully slow growth, and change, and finally, transformation. This John Newton story reflects “the sound of the genuine” in one former slave-trader come priest. His story is a story of amazing grace. His story is a story of a heart broken open.

Knowing this story, the longer, deeper, fuller, though still-not-complete story, brings richer and deeper meaning to the words of this famous hymn. Listen, once more, with eyes and ears and hearts open, if you will …

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
Twas grace which taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils, and storms I have already come.
Twas grace which brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.

When John Newton penned the words “through many dangers, toils, and storms, I have already come” he wasn’t exaggerating; not by a long shot. Like all of us, his life was full of its own dangers and challenges and near misses. His life was replete with its own tragedies and sorrows. As my life is … and your life is … and all of my patients’ lives were … As Unitarian Universalists it is from our lives; from our direct, lived experiences that we build our thea/olgies and philosophies about what is sacred; about what is holy; about what gives meaning to our lives and what our lives mean.

This journey of meaning-making and discovery and, hopefully, self-growth is never-ending. William Ellery Channing, one of our early and most famous forebears, believed that this process (which he and other 19th century Unitarians termed self-culture) continued even past death and into the afterlife. Either way, we all continue, throughout our lives, to make meaning and to discover anew, as did I, during the time I spent working as a chaplain. Here are a few of the things I learned:

All of us, and any of us, can and do feel lonely and isolated at times and it is not a matter how many people we are surrounded by. Each of us, any of us, can get wrapped up in our own pain and suffering and when this happens we are often unable to see the loneliness and pain and suffering of others who surround us. I have often walked into a hospital room and discovered a person who is sitting, or lying, in isolation and loneliness and who is suffering. Though the hospital is 430 beds full, and almost all of the people who fill those beds are experiencing some kind of pain or suffering, each person feels alone. Alone, in the middle of four hundred and thirty other people, also feeling alone. And I daresay, there may be people right here, there probably are people right here, sitting in this room, amongst all these people, who feel lonely; at least sometimes. It can be as if each person is blind to the suffering of others and cannot see through their own pain. This is a natural phenomenon, inherent to the experience of being human, and can easily happen to any of us when we are hurting deeply.

So please hear me well. I do not mean any of this as criticism of any person or even as a critique of the human condition. Rather, I see these moments as opportunities; opportunities for grace; maybe even for amazing grace.

“Grace”, as a theological concept, traditionally refers to the grace of God. Though there are multiple definitions of exactly what grace is within Christianity, I like to explain it as a gift, neatly packaged and tied with a divine bow. Christians, may or may not believe grace is deserved, and they may differ on ideas about how grace is earned, or even if it is earned; but it seems that no matter what, by anyone’s definition, grace is always unexpected. When John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace” he certainly was referring to a Christian concept of the divine grace of God. Today, though, I’d like to argue that there is such a thing as human grace; a grace that, like divine grace, may or may not be earned, but is certainly always unexpected.

I believe that each of us needs to be seen, heard, known, affirmed, and validated in our pain and in our suffering and even in our joy. I believe this needs to happen whether we are lying in a hospital bed or sitting in a pew on Sunday morning; whether we are at a gathering of friends or standing by the grave of a loved one. No one’s life is just like another’s, even when we are experiencing similar life circumstances. Each person’s experience is unique and must be seen for what it is. And when someone comes along and sees another’s pain, or joy, or sorrow, sees it’s essential truth, and sees the person behind the emotion; whether that someone is your chaplain or your minister, your friend or a stranger to you; you have been a recipient of grace. Human grace; extended from one human to another; yet no less holy than any kind of divine grace.

I believe that when we can see, when we can essentially see, the truth of another’s life through their own eyes and hearts, then our hearts are broken open and our lives are filled with amazing grace.

May it be so. Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction:

With hearts open, and with a love which knows no bounds, may your spirits be filled with amazing grace.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Commitment Sunday

October 3, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
October 1, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our commitment to supporting this church and its mission are making real differences in our lives and in our world. We will look back on some of those differences this religious community has made and re-commit our time, treasure, and talent toward nourishing souls, transforming lives, and doing justice to build the Beloved Community.

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

Stewardship is this crazy idea that we should treat other people’s stuff better than our own. To me, stewardship is the act of taking care of something you were given whether or not you could acquire it for yourself in the first place. It’s less of an environmental idea and more of a common courtesy, which is exactly what stewardship should be, common.

– Eli Sowry

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

Every 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.

– Tina DeYoe
Director of Lifespan Religious Exploration
Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, NM

Sermon

Research shows that two of the things people dislike talking about the very most are money and commitment.

Welcome to Commitment Sunday – when we talk about church members committing to how much money they will pledge to support this church and its mission next year!

So let’s just start by getting THAT out there.

People most often dislike talking about commitment because we’re afraid that something might happen that will make us unable to live up to our commitments.

That’s OK, we know such things can happen, and we adjust if needed.

We often dislike talking about money out of fear of transgressing cultural taboos -like for those of us who grew up oh-so-white protestant, where talking about money was considered gauche.

Like talking about politics at the dinner table. Or religion.

We will probably talk about both of those this morning too though.

So, let’s try to set these fears aside and engage in the spiritual practice of embracing commitment to our religious values and mission.

So, how about we get the money part out of the way first? Unitarian Universalist Churches are mainly funded by the pledges of our members. We do not receive support from a larger denominational body or the like.

For our stewardship campaign this time, we will need to secure $825,000 in pledges to support a 2024 budget of just under 1.3 million dollars.

That’s not an extravagant budget. It does not add anything to our church operational infrastructure. It keeps everything, including staffing levels the same.

That $825,000 is about the same as was pledged last time.

The good news is some wonderful folks in the church have already pledged about $175,000 toward 2024 already.

So, that’s enough about the money part, let’s talk about commitment, because I want you to know- what your commitment has already made possible for this religious community and the lives it touches.

During the previous stewardship campaign, the members of this church committed the greatest amount of support in the church’s history.

Your pledges to support the church, especially given all that we had recently been through – the church closure because of the pandemic; the retirement of a much loved minister; the loss of a longterm, also greatly loved staff member to cancer – your commitment and resilience after all of that and more was and is simply amazing.

Our stewardship theme is “Rebuild, Renew, Rise Up”, and we truly have done that – and continue to do so!

I remember that around this time last year, we were talking about how coming out of the pandemic, there was this real hunger for spirituality and greater meaning out there.

After so much isolation, people were also feeling a real need for community.

And in Austin, TX, because of your commitment, this church was there for over 75 folks who have found community and a spiritual home here since then.

And that is unusual. Very few churches are growing and thriving coming out of those pandemic isolation times.

First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is growing and thriving.

Because of your commitment and that of our wonderful religious education (RE) staff, our RE program is also one of the only such programs across the country that is growing and vibrant.

We have added numerous adult RE offerings. Kelly, our Director ofRE, has reimagined the program in ways that have kept it robust.

We trained facilitators from across this country on how to offer Our Whole Lives, the age appropriate sexuality education program that enhances and perhaps even saves lives.

We offered a summer camp for children, steeped in Unitarian Universalist history and theology to help deepen their growing spirituality and faith.

This religious community exudes an energy, a vitality that is rare these days and worth celebrating.

If you are one of the folks who have joined us relatively recently, thank you for your commitment. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for belonging within this community of faithful vitality. Because this church committed to its stewardship needs, we have also been able to offer so many ministries to all who cross our threshold either physically or virtually.

Ministries that provide ways to find and explore that hunger for spirituality – that longing for community.

We offer so many that I cannot possibly mention them all here, but I do want to mention a few that we either newly began or that we revitalized over the past several months.

A recently revitalized First UU Pagan Alliance group is going strong.

A wonderful bunch of folks, several of them Unitarian Universalist seminarians, offered an alternative, Vespers, worship service one Tuesday evening per month. The group is looking at possibly expanding these in this church year.

We have a wealth of spiritual direction, spirituality, and spiritual practices groups that are going strong, some of them also newly formed.

Some great folks have rekindled our healthy relations team to support us in fulfilling our covenantal promises that bind us together in the ways of love.

Our wonderful First UU Cares team has done so much to expand a culture of caring within the church – to make sure we are there to support one another and feel comfortable reaching out for support.

Our memorial services team has expanded their support for folks going through one of life’s most difficult times – the loss of a loved one.

At one point this year, this team and our staff provided four memorial services in one week.

I cannot tell you how many people have told me that this team and this church have helped them make it through when they were afraid they might not.

We also began a peer grief support group in the church.

Fun, fellowship and the arts are also key to our sense of spirituality and community, and your commitment has allowed our terrific fellowship team to thrive, our Sharon and Brian Moore Gallery to provide some truly outstanding exhibitions, and our amazing director of music, Brent Baldwin, to launch a new concert series.

And speaking of music, our music program and choir are just beyond first rate. They truly do nourish our souls.

Your commitment also allowed us to bring in a diverse group of guest worship leaders so that we could benefit from experiencing a wide range of life-perspectives and styles.

I can’t tell you how complimentary our guests were of this church’s staff- how the staff’s professionalism made appearing at our church such a pleasure for these guests.

We have what has to be one of the finest church staffs anywhere, made possible by the financial support of the religious community.

Well, I could go on and on about the wonderful things this church is doing, and I have not even come close to covering all of them.

I’ll wrap up though by talking about how your commitment to this community has allowed us to live out our values.

Folks have formed a new Vegan group.

The Earthkeepers group is helping us be in right relationship with our land.

Our social action council now has well over 100 members and a brilliant group of social justice pillars doing great work to bring our mission into the world – Reproductive Justice, Racial Justice, Environmental Justice, LGBTQ+ Rights, Democracy, Immigrant Rights – we continue to play an active role with Austin Sanctuary Network, which we helped found.

Our fantastic reproductive rights group just issued an impressive report on their much needed work.

Did you know we are partnering with a non-profit organization to be a distribution site for reproductive health kits?

Our environmental action folks were a part of efforts that stopped radioactive waste from being brought to West Texas by rail and dumped there.

We’ve engaged in trans inclusion work and are hosting support workshops for trans and other gender diverse folks and their loved ones.

This church brought a huge presence to the recent session of the Texas Legislature, speaking out on a number of issues, especially some involving the rights and dignity of LGBTQ folks.

We were there to show we care. We were there to follow the lead of those most affected. We showed up to proclaim our religious values in the public arena.

We put the denizens of our Texas State Capital on notice that the struggle for human rights, dignity and justice is far from over.

We will show up for love and justice over and over and over again. OK, I made it most of the way without talking about politics!

A church member recently told me that given the meanness of spirit in our state politics, not to mention our ever hotter Austin summers, this church is what makes it possible for them to keep living here.

I think that is true for me too.

So, though the research says we don’t like talking about money and commitment, research has also found that committing to generosity can benefit our mental and physical well-being.

It can even lower our blood pressure.

So this Commitment Sunday, let’s all lower our blood pressure and commit or recommit to this church.

Commit to nourishing souls.
Commit to transforming lives.
Commit to justice.
Commit to the Beloved Community.
Commit to building new ways that within our midst and in our world, bring that Beloved Community alive.

Amen.

I invite you to reflect upon the commitment you may wish to make to the values, mission, and ministries of this church.

Please consider what might be meaningful and spiritually nourishing for you.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Belonging

September 25, 2023 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
September 24, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong – somewhere, somehow, sometime in your life? Probably, if you’re like most people. What makes the difference in feeling like you do or do not belong? How can we help ourselves, each other, and people we haven’t even met yet cultivate that oh-so-important sense of belonging? And how does all of this relate to our Unitarian Universalist Principles?

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

Lifting Our Voices #36

We are all longing to go home to some place
we have never been – a place, half- remembered, and haIf-envisioned
we can only catch glimpses of from time to time.
Community.
Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion
without having the words catch in our throats.
Somewhere a circle of hands
will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.
Community means strength
that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing.
A circle of friends.
Someplace where we can be free.

– Starhawk

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

YOU BELONG: A CALL FOR CONNECTION
by Sebene Selassie

“When you don’t like the joke, you belong. When you’re the “only one” of your race, disability, or sexuality, you belong. When you’re terrified to speak in public, you belong. When you feel hurt or when you have hurt someone else you belong. When you are down to your last dollars and the rent is due, you belong. When you feel overwhelmed by the horrors of human beings, you belong. When you have a debilitating illness, you belong. When everyone else is getting married, you belong. When you don’t know what you’re doing with your life, you belong. When the world feels like it’s falling apart, you belong. When you feel you don’t belong, you belong.”

Sermon

I remember well the moment I knew that I belonged in a UU congregation. I was in the meetinghouse, standing at the kitchen sink to wash my hands, when I saw this … a bottle of Seventh Generation dish soap. And then I saw that the paper towels were unbleached, brown, recycled paper towels.

This was many years ago, long before you could go to the regular grocery store and buy all sorts of cruelty-free, environmentally friendly, vegan much of anything. Instead, you had to go to a natural foods store or order what you wanted online. That meant that in many areas of my life, like at work, I felt different from most other people. I was a vegetarian, with vegan tendencies, and had been for many years. And most folk, even in the liberal areas, just … weren’t.

So, back to the sink. There I stood, looking at dish soap and paper towels, and a feeling overcame me that here were a people who would understand me, all of me. Here, I could be free. Here, I wouldn’t feel so different, so separate. I felt my body relax, as if I had been holding my breath and could finally breathe. A missing piece of the puzzle, that thing I had been longing for, without even knowing it, had been found. Here, I was at home. Here, I belonged.

If Sebene Selassie, the author of this morning’s reading, were here, I think she would tell me, tell all of us, that this experience of mine wasn’t really about finding a place I belonged, so much as it was about experiencing a feeling of belonging. Because I already belonged. I belong. And so do you. Selassie would say, and has said, that the key to belonging comes from within. We all already belong to everything – to ourselves, to each other, to the cosmos. That the feeling of not belonging comes from a “delusion of separation” – a false belief that we are separate. That if we don’t feel like we belong, we can learn to feel it, because belonging is wired within us. Feelings of belonging come from within.

Let’s sit with that for a moment. Everyone of you, whether you are here in person, or watching online, or watching on television, belongs. You already belong. Whether you feel it or not, and I hope you can, you belong.

Selassie, among other things, is a meditation teacher and a student of Buddhism. She explains it this way: There is a paradox in Buddhism called the Doctrine of Two Truths

“the absolute or ultimate truth of interconnection and the relative or conventional truth of difference. The absolute and the relative seem to contradict each other … but they describe only one reality. Belonging flourishes within this paradox: everything is connected, yet everything is experienced as separate.”

Within our own Unitarian Universalist tradition, we know this as “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part”. We are interconnected. Interdependent. We cannot separate ourselves from the web of existence, from all of life here on earth, or from the cosmos itself.

Let me say more about this interdependent web of all existence and where it comes from. As a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations, we have covenanted to affirm and promote several Principles. These are found within Article II of our UUA’s bylaws and, because of their importance, are printed many other places, including in the front of our gray hymnals.

The interdependent web is the 7th Principle. All Unitarian Universalists, all UU congregations, have covenanted to affirm and promote the interdependent web of all existence. This is not a belief statement, but an action statement. Though it may be helpful to understand that many of us have incorporated the Principles into our personal belief systems.

Now, bear with me for a moment, because here comes the part where we need to catch everybody up all together. As we are a non-creedal faith, we rely on covenant and because we are a living tradition, we require of ourselves to review our covenant and, therefore, our Principles, every so many years. We are currently in one of those review periods and so we are living, for a year, with a new format, based on shared values, which will then come up for a final vote in the General Assembly in June of 2024.

These are our (proposed) shared values. Love is at the center, along with a flaming chalice. The remaining six values are pictured in a circle around the chalice. Starting at 12:00, there is:

Interdependence, in a swirl of orange;
Equity, in a swirl of red;
Transformation, in a swirl of purple;
Pluralism, in a swirl of blue;
Generosity, in a swirl of teal.
Justice, in a swirl of yellow;

(The image and discussion of the proposed change can be found HERE.)

If you listen or read carefully, you will find the familiar language of all of our Principles reincorporated into these shared values. The proposed language, which goes with the value of Interdependence, is this:

“Interdependence. We honor the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. With humility and reverence, we covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation, creating and nurturing sustainable relationships of repair, mutuality, and justice.”

We are interconnected, interdependent with all of existence. We cannot remove ourselves from it, therefore, we belong. By the very nature of our existence, we belong. We belong to the interdependent web, we belong to the earth, the rocks, the trees, the oceans, the mountains, the creeks and rivers, the forests, the deserts, the animals, the birds, the volcanos, the lands where we have never been. The parts we like and the parts we don’t. We belong to all of it. And we belong to each other. Whether we want to belong or not, whether we try to belong or not. We belong because we are. Whether we see it, or hear it, or feel it, or sense it, or experience it, or not – we belong because we are.

(Story about cafeteria table in seminary)

My friend belonged, but did not experience feelings of belonging, did not experience feeling welcomed at the table. No matter our intentions of radical welcome, no matter our efforts at radical welcome, no matter whether we were the cool kids or not. My friend perceived us as separate, as disconnected. Sometimes, the best laid plans simply go awry. And that’s okay. We learn something from it and then we try again.

Welcoming is the Soul Matters theme for this month for some of the small groups (chalice circles). So, I’ve been thinking a lot about welcoming and belonging, how they are similar and how they are different and where they overlap. To my mind, belonging is something that just is, whether we want it or not, and whether we can feel it or not. This is new thinking for me, to which I greatly credit Sebene Selassie after reading and reflecting deeply upon her work and how it converges with my own life and experiences.

Welcoming, on the other hand, is about actions we can take. We can practice welcoming. We can even practice Radical Welcoming. And these practices can, potentially, increase feelings of belonging in those we are welcoming. Here, this congregation practices welcoming in a lot of ways: there is a welcome table, there are name tags, cough drops, and Kleenex, there are gender neutral single stall bathrooms, there is a membership coordinator, there are classes about membership, there is a group that helps people connect to the various church ministry teams, there is a BIPOC group, there is an LGBTQ group, there are classes on antiracism and trans inclusion, and so, so much more.

I see welcoming, or radical welcoming, as actions we can choose to take, and which highlight the strands of the interdependent web of all existence. It is easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we are separate, disconnected, or don’t belong. It is easy to get busy with our lives and not notice the connections. the strands of the web, which are there all the time. Welcoming practices help ourselves and each other to see, or hear, or sense, or otherwise experience the strands of connection inherent in our interdependent web. It’s kind of like in one of those action movies where someone is trying to break into a high security area crisscrossed by invisible lasers. The would-be intruder, who is also often the heroic figure, pulls out a can of something, sprays it all around, and the laser beams suddenly become visible. I like to imagine engaging in welcoming practices as something like spraying that can. We can make the strands of the interdependent web, which connects all of us, and to which we all belong, visible by spraying that can. Just like spraying a room to find all the hidden laser beams, we welcome people to highlight the strands of belonging.

While speaking of belonging, and of welcoming, I want to highlight another important aspect of our living tradition. We are not a faith where anything goes, where you can believe anything you want, or do anything you want. Our beliefs and actions are all meant to be oriented toward the good, for the building of a better world, for the creation of beloved community. While people of all identities, or combination of identities, marginalized or privileged, are welcome here, not all behaviors are. This is why covenanting is so critical to our faith.

When we are at our best, we have good, strong, healthy boundaries. In this congregation, that means being a people of goodwill. And, by the way, the Healthy Relations Team is currently working on some proposed changes to the church covenant to make it more inclusive. If you’d like to participate in this process, go see them at their table at social hour.

All people of goodwill – Whoever you are, wherever you come from, wherever you find yourself on your life’s journey, whichever your pronouns, whether you’ve walked in or rolled in or dialed in, whomever you love, you are welcome here. You belong here.

May it be so evermore. Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction

All know, that you are welcome here.
Know that you belong.
Know this deep down in the center of your soul:
Each and everyone of you belongs,
All the time, everywhere, to everyone, to everything. May the interdependent web shimmer and shine, hum and thrum,
for all your days and for all of your nights.

Amen, Amen, and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS