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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
April 30, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

With all that is going on in our social and political environment these days, it can feel overwhelming. How do we resist so many assaults on human worth and dignity? How do we sustain resistance long-term? We will look at how spiritual practices such as opening to joy, celebrating our bodies, embracing joy and humor, immersing ourselves in relationship and more can help us resist simply going into survival mode and instead thrive, even amongst so many challenges.

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

Joy is a revolutionary force. We need it as much as we need anger. It is joy that will keep using these bodies long enough to enact justice.

– Evette Dionne (Free Black Girl)

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

BREATHE
Lynn Ungar

Breathe, said the wind
How can I breathe at a time like this,
when the air is full of the smoke
of burning tires, burning lives!
Just breathe, the wind insisted.
Easy for you to say, if the weight of
injustice is not wrapped around your throat,
cutting off all air.
I need you to breathe.

I need you to breathe.

Don’t tell me to be calm
when there are so many reasons
to be angry, so much cause for despair!
I didn’t say to be calm, said the wind,
I said to breathe.
We’re going to need a lot of air
to make this hurricane together.

Sermon

The Texas Senate just passed a bill that would authorize the construction of an anti-abortion monument on the grounds of the state capitol. They also passed a bill requiring every classroom in a public school to display a copy of the Christian 10 commandments.

Here, and across the country, various forms of “don’t say gay” bills have been passed or proposed, limiting or outright banning the discussion ofLGBTQ issues in public schools.

Measures trampling upon Trans rights, such as prohibiting access access to life-affirming, life-saving healthcare and so many other punitive measures are being passed or considered. As are various ways of criminalizing drag performances. II

As is forbidding telling students the truth about the history of slavery, racism and other forms of oppression in this country, along with measures banning books, eliminating tenure in higher education, turning our schools into militarized zones, targeting funding for public schools by shifting it to private, often religiously indoctrinating, private schools … It keeps going …

Fees on environmentally friendly ways of producing energy, as well as such ways of consuming energy, such as an additional tax on owners of electric vehicles. Various ways of suppressing voting rights, particularly targeted toward BIPOC folks and young people.

Other proposals would take away regulatory authority from municipalities, curtail workers rights, ban diversity initiatives, punish businesses that assist their workers with obtaining abortions out of state or that promote clean energy.

Well, the list of legislative atrocities goes on and on and on. In April, we’ve been exploring the spiritual topic of resistance. With all of these seemingly never-ending assaults upon our religious values and principles though, it can sometimes feel like this:

VIDEO

Now, I’m not saying there is Star Trek Borg-like crusade afoot that wants to force us all into a white supremacy culture, hetero-cispatriarchal, radical capitalistic, caste-structured, fundamentalist Christian-centered hive mind way of being. – Oh, maybe I am.

Anyway, given the bombardment we are witnessing upon the very foundations of human dignity, the question becomes, how do we sustain resistance over the long-term – find new and innovative ways to engage in such resistance?

Well, fundamentally, we steadfastly refuse to accept the framing being foisted upon us.

So, for instance, when LGTBTQ+ folks and our loved ones and supporters get accused of “grooming children”, we do not respond with, “Nuh, uh. We don’t either.” That centers the argument on the frame being imposed by those with whom we disagree. Instead, we reject the frame altogether.

Or perhaps, we turn it upside down by asking something like, “Well, who is that is trying to indoctrinate our school children with a white supremacy culture, hetero-cis-patriarchal, radical-capitalistic, caste-structured, fundamentalist Christian-centered worldview.”

“Who is it that would deny our children an understanding of the history of slavery, racism and other forms of oppression in this country and the brave folks who have successfully fought against them.” “Who would deny them knowing of the metaphorical truths to be gleaned from all of the world’s wisdom traditions and the myriad beautiful forms of human flourishing?” “Just who is doing the grooming?”

And, activists and movement leaders have identified several ways we can sustain and our resistance while often at the same time flipping the frame like this.

First, don’t forget smaller acts of resistance. We often think of resistance as huge marches and the like. But speaking out through what we buy, what we eat, where we show up (or do not), for instance, can be powerful forms of resistance.

Author and activist Adrienne Marie Brown, writes as follows:

“small resistance historically has looked like a wrench in the gears, a slowing things down, a rancid ingredient in master’s food, enslaved people teaching each other to read and write … “small resistance these days looks like turning people who are supporting and promoting racist, transphobic and inhumane policies away from your door. it looks like stopping next to police cars that have pulled people over and filming them until the person stopped is allowed to leave … “

The Dalai Lama simply says, “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”

Number two: open ourselves to joy and pleasure and infuse them into our activism.

In her book, “Pleasure Activism; The Politics of Feeling Good”, Adrienne Renee Brown writes, “Feeling good is not frivolous, it is freedom,” that pleasure is the way we know, “… I belong, I’m safe … I have decolonized. I have returned to myself.”

Journalist and activist Evette Dionne, also known as @freeblackgirl, says it this way, “Joy is a revolutionary force. We need It as much as we need anger because it is joy that will help keep us in these bodies long enough to enact justice.”

Designer and author Ingrid Fetell Lee argues that autocrats throughout the world have attempted to stifle Joy because it is a “propulsive force”.

Joy is a sustaining source of energy for change.
Shared joy creates unity.
Pleasure reclaims our humanity.
It disrupts biases that separate us.
Joy is a form of care that allows us to move past trauma and reclaim our resilience and hope.

Inviting one another to enter, rejoice and come in can be a powerful form of resistance.

Number 2a: Remember that music is a powerful source of joy within our resistance. Our music can both provide us with nourishment for our social justice struggles and a powerful voice for proclaiming them.

In fact, the group Resistance Revival Chorus is one such powerful voice for justice. I want you to let you hear them and their music just a bit.

VIDEO

Singing, chanting, drumming, protests songs, popular artists releasing songs of justice – these tap into the emotional and metaphorical parts of our consciousness, making them formidable ways to inspire action and bring about lasting change.

2b.: Humor is a wellspring of joy and a remarkably effective way to deliver our message. The United States Institute of Peace outlines several ways humor can radically benefit non-violent social movements. A well targeted joke can upend power dynamics.

Each joke can become a tiny revolution. For instance, during the “Arab Spring”, as Mubarak in Egypt refused to announce his resignation, one protestor took to social media, saying: “He’s watching Egyptian state TV … He doesn’t know it’s his last day in office.” This snowballed on social media with a multitude of jokes portraying Mubarak as clueless – as someone to laugh at rather than fear.

The Institute also notes that humor can be nearly impossible for regimes to stamp out. It serves as a healing sort of pressure relief valve for activists and can attract more people to a movement. I found so many of examples of moments utilizing humor that I cannot possibly tell you about all of them. Have some fun and search it online sometime though.

A couple of favorites. The folks who decked themselves out as clowns to attend a Klan rally and informed the klans people that they were the ones who looked silly. And, how could I leave out the Raging Grannies?

VIDEO

Number 3: Relearning to love our bodies and ourselves is a radical act of resistance.

Performance and theatre artist, poet and activist Trisha Hershey says, “Loving ourselves and each other deepens our disruption of the dominant systems. They want us unwell, fearful, exhausted, and without deep self-love because you are easier to manipulate when you are distracted … “

So many of our systems of oppression exert their power and control by separating us from our bodies – assaulting our bodily autonomy.

Renee Taylor, who says it so much more powerfully in her poem, “Bodies of Resistance”.

VIDEO

BODIES OF RESISTANCE
Sonya Renee Taylor

It is Monday afternoon and Roberta watches her sons
spout laughter from their geyser throats;
sunchoked and full of joy when she brings them to the beach.
All family members a sanctuary slightly out of reach,
a raft against the lash of constant waves.
But undertow will be too savage for her to save them.
Today, the ocean is a tyrant appointed to swallow them all.
Until 80 Samaritans build a wall in the Gulf of Mexico,
single-mindedly summoned to ferry Roberta’s drowning family to shore.
Humans who intuitively know that every wall needs at least one door.
Today, 80 disparate strangers became bodies of resistance
Today, 80 people rebelled against an apathetic ocean’s insistence on a sacrifice,

And is life y’all, In these bodies. Breathless and beleaguered,
we coax one another to survive. We are alive
despite even our bones’ dissent. The slack-Jawed mutter that says
these bodies were not for delight. Who are we to smile
as the world spins in entropy, a hula hoop at our feet?
What right have we to meet this day with anything but fear?
We right now but out ther …
wails the tiny bloom of child
we hush from inside. And I know
she is, he is, they you are afraid,
convinced we beware and hide, …

… We saw no “they” in we, knew solidarity
was a word that must spring like water
forever beside a standing rock. The clock of justice
will not tarry while you question
whether you are worthy of the fight.

Forget all you have been told.
Resistance is an everyday act,
the work of excavating each artifact
of the oppressor that lives in you.
Your call to be a balm to every self~inflicted wound
is how movements are birthed.
In a world content to bid you endless slumber
waking unrepentant in your skin is a hero’s journey.
The only way we collectively prevail. Only then can we celebrate
in the words of the great poet Lucille Clifton,
that every day something has tried to kill us
And has failed.
And has failed.
And will fail.

Renee Taylor also says that allowing ourselves to rest, to slow down even within our struggles for justice, lets us dream and develop vision. She writes, “Today more than ever, I know that we need quiet, rest, and sacred, unapologetic community to most powerfully manifest the full possibilities of living in radical self love.”

And that brings us finally to number 4: Connection and Community are vital for successful social action.

We are most powerful when we are resisting together. We cannot sustain ourselves for the long haul without community. Movement building means building power. Building power requires building Beloved Community.

I’ll close by mentioning that with so many threats to our fundamental values going on in our world, we can easily slip into the survival part of our brain unconsciously – our flight, fight, freeze, or fawn responses.

• • Flight mode is when we kind of go, “Danger! Danger! Run away! Run away!”

• • Fight mode is “Danger! Danger! I kill it.”

• • Flee mode is “Danger! Danger. Maybe if I am very, very quiet and very, very still, it won’t notice me.”

• And fawn is when we go, “Danger! Danger! Maybe if I am very, very nice to it, it won’t try to kill me.”

We have to resist staying in that mode though, because it automatically shuts down the creative and thinking parts off our brains, and our bodies produce lots of chemicals that can be useful in the moment of danger but harmful if they continue unabated. We have to pull ourselves out of this mode if we are to not only to survive longer term but to flourish.

All that we have talked about today are practices that help us do that – have helped this church do exactly that!

Poet Maya Angelou said, “The question is not how to survive, but how to thrive with passion, compassion, humor and style.”

This religious community has answered that question, even while facing so many challenges in the past few years. Out of loss and a pandemic, we have built a new way. We have resisted merely surviving and instead chosen thriving. II And so, we are growing in numbers and in spiritual maturity – in passion, compassion, humor and style.

Small, simple acts, joy, music, humor, loving our bodies and ourselves, connection and community – these will continue to keep our faith alive, our resistance strong and our spirits flourishing.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
April 16, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

As we approach Earth Day, what is the current status of the climate crisis? We will examine what we can do to make a difference and how viewing the climate crisis as a spiritual and personal issue might help sustain us for the sacred journey ahead.

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

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.

– Lokota Proverb

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

The rivers are the veins of God, the ocean is His blood, and the trees the hairs of His body. The air is His breath, the earth His flesh, the sky His abdomen, the hills and mountains are His bones, and the passing ages are His movements.

– Hindu Srimad-Bhagavatam

Sermon

When I was in my 20s, I lived for a while in Denver, Colorado.

I loved it there, primarily because it was so close to the Rockies. My family had brought me to those mountains as a child, and, over time, several areas in them had become holy to me.

One such area has always been a drive that begins right outside of Boulder and follows the winding course of a crystal clear river through jagged, spectacular rock formations, soaring to miraculous heights above the roadside.

Along the river, aspen trees and a dazzling variety of forest life thrive, then around other curves, great pine forests climb up the mountainsides, green and lush.

I have been on that trek many times, the last just a little less than a year ago.

As an adult, I have always felt compelled to stop quite often to absorb the shear beauty and experience the sense of transcendence such beauty can awaken. It had become a spiritual journey for me.

So my spirit was shattered the last time I went, because as I rounded the first curve where one of the great pine forests had been, what was formerly green and lush was barren and brown.

All of the pine trees were dead.

And this is happening all over the Rocky mountains.

According to the Colorado Forest Service, there are now close to one billion dead, standing trees in Colorado, due mostly to the climate crisis.

Average temperatures have risen by several degrees, leading to extreme heat during summers and an ongoing drought.

These two factors alone have killed many of the trees and severely weakened others.

A beetle that attacks the trees has also killed many more of them. At one time, a symbiosis of sorts had existed. The beetles would kill off older, weaker trees, clearing space for new growth.

However, long periods of extreme cold would kill the beetle off during the winter, keeping it from multiplying to the point that it could overwhelm even healthy trees.

Now though, the trees are already weakened by heat and drought. The winters are shorter and less cold. Now, the beetle is killing trees in 3.4 million acres of forest. All that dead wood provides ready fuel for wildfires, which not only kill more trees, but spew more carbon into the atmosphere, escalating a vicious cycle.

Next Saturday is Earth Day, so we are centering this Sunday on how we can spring into action regarding the climate crisis.

And my beloveds, it is a crisis.

As young climate activist Greta Thunberg said it, “Can we all now please stop saying ‘climate change’ and instead call it what it is: climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate emergency…?”

Now, I want to acknowledge that words like “crisis” and “emergency”, especially when it is on a global scale, can seem so big and overwhelming that we want to just avoid it.

We can feel stuck – like we can’t possibly do anything to make a meaningful difference.

So to resist falling into what is being called “climate doomerism”, know that in a few moments, we will talk about actions we can take.

And I began with that personal story, our readings today came from religious texts, because if we can begin to see the climate crisis as a personal and a spiritual issue, we may also develop a fortitude that sustains such actions.

And it is a personal and a spiritual issue.

In fact, all of the world’s major religions emphasize responsible environmental stewardship.

The Muslim Quran reminds us not to shirk this responsibility: “Corruption has appeared on land and sea Because of what people’s own hands have wrought, So may they taste something of what they have done; So that hopefully they will turn back.”

An existential corruption has appeared upon on our land and sea. The United Nations recently issued a report stating that “The chance to secure a livable future for everyone on earth is slipping away.”

“The climate time-bomb is ticking,” said Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, adding “Humanity is on thin ice – and that ice is melting fast.” Literally.

As polar ice sheets, as well as other fresh water ice sources, melt, sea levels are rising.

So much so, that repeated flooding in cities like Miami had led to “climate gentrification”, where wealthier folks are buying up property on higher ground, making it too expensive for folks with less resources.

Here is a projection for what happens to the gulf coast, depending on how much ice melts and sea levels rise.

VIDEO – “SeaLevels”

The video goes on to show the state of Florida completely disappearing under water if all the ice sheets melt.

And just as these rising sea levels threaten entire habitats, the climate crisis more generally is destroying many others.

Hundreds upon hundreds of animal species are threatened with extinction, including those pictured in this slide.

SLIDE – “Extinct”

And, I suppose, human beings should be up there too. While scientists encounter more difficulty determining the threats as precisely, we know that a great many plant species are threatened also, including many of the crops upon which we depend.

These include potatoes, avocados, vanilla, cotton, beans, squash, chili pepper, husk tomato, bananas, apples, prunes, and ginger, to list just a few.

In Austin, we have shifted from a Zone 8 to a Zone 9 habitat, meaning that when we look at our church grounds, which plants are native or adaptive has changed since some of our existing foliage was planted.

Worse yet, it is getting much harder to even classify habitats.

Extreme weather events are defying what had been normative climate ranges – think our recent snow-then ice-pacolypses, separated by sustained days of triple digit heat.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Goes the climate crisis time-bomb.

OK, enough of crisis caterwauling though. Lest we fall into that climate doomerism, let’s about how we take action. And for this, we return to the personal and the spiritual.

The Buddhist Metta Suttra says, “Even as a mother protects with her life Her child, So with a boundless heart Should one cherish all living beings, Radiating kindness over the entire world, Spreading upward to the skies, And downward to the depths…”

That’s so beautiful, because it centers our personal commitment to our planet in a love for all that is.

And we can put that love into action in our individual lives.

We’ve provided this flyer that outlines some of the personal ways we can reduce climate emissions through our transportation and travel, home efficiency, dietary habits, and much more.

Our Green Sanctuary Team and representatives from guest environmental groups are available to provide more information after the service.

Now, some climate activists argue against focusing on this type of individualized approach to the climate crisis.

They argue that it distracts us from the movement building we must do to demand change from the real culprits behind climate warming emissions – large corporations and the governments that do their bidding.

Climate activist Derrick Jensen even made a film about this called, “Forget Shorter Showers”.

And these worries have some legitimacy.

For a couple of decades now, British Petroleum has run an ad campaign designed to shift the public’s focus away from the much larger role oil corporations play in the climate crisis by pushing individual responsibility instead.

Yet, all of our individual efforts combined, no matter how strong and widespread, will never be enough to offset the damage being done by giant corporate polluters.

I don’t believe we can “forget shorter showers” though.

The film itself states that individual efforts could reduce our carbon emissions by 22%.

These efforts are necessary, just not sufficient. So, we need both.

We need to reduce our own, individual climate emissions, while also coming together to demand major changes in climate-related government oversight and corporate practices.

And we must try to convince others to join our advocacy efforts.

We must know that these too ARE spiritual practices.

A Baha’i sacred text states, “We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. We are organic with the world. Our inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in life is the result of these mutual reactions.”

And my beloveds, we can mould that environment. So much is already being done. There is so much for which we can advocate.

Scientists are developing technologies that can both help vastly reduce our emissions and remove carbon dioxide from the air.

SLIDE – air capture

Researcher Jennifer Wilcox describes advances she and others are making to create carbon capture technology that is both economically and scientifically feasible.

Scientists with an organization called Project Drawdown are proposing achievable ways that we cannot not only halt the increase of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere but actually reverse it! You can find out more about their work at drawdown.org.

I want to show you just one of their graphics.

SLIDE – “drawdown”

This shows just some ways we can begin to drastically reverse the climate crisis.

I’ll address just a few of these very quickly.

Refrigerants: Not so long ago, because of environmental advocacy, the world came together successfully to address the use of refrigerants that were destroying the ozone layer.

Regrettably, some of the chemicals that manufactures then began using have been discovered to greatly increase atmospheric warming. A new effort is underway to promote the use of even newer cooling methods that do not contribute the climate crisis.

The good news is we already have a model for such advocacy. We’ve done it before.

Education and equality: These scientists’ studies have shown that, for a multitude of reasons, if we begin to address educational, economic, social and racial inequalities throughout the world, particularly as regards girls, women and family planning, an additional benefit will be remarkably large reductions in atmospheric warming. And this work is already consistent with our Unitarian Universalist principles!

In his book Blessed Unrest, activist Paul Hawkins proposes that a global movement to demand environmental and social justice is already underway.

VIDEO – “blessed unrest”

And to build on that momentum, we have to talk about the climate crisis. We have to convince others to join this movement.

Now, how many of you have tried to engage with someone in denial about the climate crisis?

How’d that go for you? How well did throwing facts and figures at them work? Environmental scientist Katherine Hayhoe says that we must talk about the climate crisis, but that we may have greater success if we emphasize values and common ground over rehashing facts.

Here she is describing doing so at a rotary club meeting in the second most conservative U.S. city, Lubbock, TX.

VIDEO – “values”

So, whether it is rooted in a common love for the outdoors or her own Christian faith, Dr. Hayhoe’s research has led her to believe a values based approach is most likely to motivate change.

While reading her book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing, I kept finding myself thinking about by Grandpa Leo.

SLIDE – “leo”

There he is – young Leo, and Leo as I more often remember him. After my parents divorced, my grandfather became a role model for me. He instilled in me a love for nature and those mountains in Colorado. I remember him taking us camping in the piney woods of East Texas. One of my favorite memories is walking with him during a rainfall under the pine tree canopy, shielded from the rain, saturated with the intoxicating smell of dampened pine needles.

Now the thing is, Grandpa Leo and I probably had very different ideological leanings.

He was, after all, a Deacon in a small-town-Texas Baptist Church. And yet, were he alive today, I believe we would find common ground in our shared values – a love for nature and a faith-centered call to responsible environmental stewardship.

If I told him about the dying Pines in Colorado, the glaciers disappearing in Glacier National Park, his beloved Gulf coastline slowly fading away under the rising waters – I have no doubt that Grandpa Leo would soon become a leader in the movement!

After all, it is the values he instilled in me that lead me to think of it as a spiritual journey – a sacred undertaking.

My beloveds, our time is running short, but we do still have time. Our spiritual journey begins now.

We undertake this sacred quest of resurrecting the very future of life and creation, together.

And the Grandpa Leo in me is saying, “Come on ya’ll, let’s get going.”

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
February 5, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Love is fundamental for fulfillment in our lives and central to our theology as Unitarian Universalists. Love brings us great joy, comfort and so many other wonderful feelings. And to love will mean to experience loss. Love is not just an emotion but also involves behavior in which we must engage to keep it alive. Love calls us toward our best selves and beckons us 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

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

Loving only ourselves is escapism; loving only our opponents is self-loathing; loving only others is ineffective. All three practices together make love revolutionary, and revolutionary love can only be practiced in community.

Love is more than a rush of feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving – a choice we make over and over again.

– Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

Sermon

“Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby-awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.” That’s a quote from Lemony Snicket, pseudonym for author and musician Daniel Handler.

During February, we will be exploring “The Path of Love” as our spiritual subject. I loved that quote because, to me, it captures in a humorous way how love is so much more complicated than the sentimentality often portrayed in greeting cards and made for TV movies.

Certainly, love can involve extremely feel good emotions. It can be sentimental, romantic, even joyous.

Valarie Kaur, whom we heard from in our reading earlier, describes it like this, “…that rush of oxytocin…that rush of feeling, being swept away, and it’s delicious, and it’s delirious, and it’s what we live for. It’s glorious.”

However, she goes on to say: “And it’s fleeting.” “And it’s something that happens to you, right? “

The point she goes on to make is that love is more than a feeling. To keep love alive, to express love to its utmost dimensions, to channel and amplify that great river of love that flows through our universe, we must choose love, as she says, “over, and over, and over again”. Love makes demands of us. It calls us to engage in loving actions.

It lures us toward joyfully making love the primary occupation of our lives.

My spouse Wayne and I have been together for almost 32 years now. I truly believe that part of the reason that we are still together and still in love is that we have engaged in keeping love alive. We have done the work of love.

Through all those years, even in difficult times, even when it was tough, we have both always been willing to come to the other and say, “Can we find a time to talk?”

Now. I’ll admit that sometimes when Wayne has come to me with that, what I was really feeling inside was: “Oh, OK.”

“How about three years from next Thursday?” But I always said, “yes”. And I know Wayne has also felt that way at times when I have come to him, and he has always said “yes.” And those difficult conversations have kept our love filled with vitality. Another thing we have always done is something quite simple. One of us will just go get the other one and, for example, say, “Come see this with me. The night sky is unbelievably beautiful from our front porch tonight.” That brings me to what research psychologists John and Julie Gottman have called, “Bids for emotional connection.”

Here is a short explanation of this.

SERMON VIDEO

I still need to work on that “putting away your screens” part. Similarly, researcher Dr. Sara Algoe has found that the simple act of expressing gratitude, especially if we are specific about what we appreciate, is a key aspect of living out our love for each other.

And it is important to note that these ways of doing the work of love:

• Being willing to engage in crucial conversations;
• Turning toward bids for connection;
• Expressing gratitude;

All of these can also benefit our relationships with other family members, friends, co-workers, here at the church and out in the world of forming solidarity for social justice.

Now, Valerie Kaur also says though, “Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.”

To make love the primary occupation of our lives, we must also accept that to know the joy of love we will also suffer loss.

At memorial services, I sometimes quote Kahlil Gibran:

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

 

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?..

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

And, as a spiritual task, we must also know that there are times when love will drive rage within us, especially when we witness injustice. We must allow that at times, anger is a necessary part of loving. As Audre Lorde, who described herself as “”black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” wrote, “My fear of anger taught me nothing. Your fear of that anger will teach you nothing, also.”

But, as Kaur also says, we must know that returning to the wonder of love is how we sustain the struggle for justice. If we dwell only in love’s anger, we will cease to know the joy of love.

And all of this is KEY to our faith as Unitarian Universalists. It is at the core of our shared theology.

Though we may have many different individual beliefs, what holds us together as a religion is that we are covenantal. We make promises to one another that we will walk together in the ways of love.

Our Unitarian ancestors believed in the oneness of God, rather than God as the the trinity of the father, the son and the holy spirit. In time, for many Unitarians this became about the oneness of all of us and of all things.

Our Universalist forebearers proclaimed that God’s love is universal. That he would not condemn any of his children to eternal hell.

Because that would be child abuse and quite severely patriarchal. Over time, we have often come to broaden this as a calling to universal love for others and for all that is.

Currently, a study commission of the central organizing and support structure for our faith, the Unitarian Universalist Association (or UUA) has recommend that we, the constituent congregations and faith groups of the UUA, consider a change to the bylaws for our association.

Paula Cole Jones, co-author of the 8th principle serves on that commission. The commission is proposing a new covenant for our religious movement composed of a set of religious values that embody the essence and intent of our current principles, as well as incorporates key language from each of them. I will be offering a session to learn about and discuss this recommendation on February 19 after the worship service.

Briefly for now though, here is their graphic representation of the proposed values.

SLIDE

What is striking to me is that love once again shows up as the core of our faith – our theological anchor. Once again, love is calling us to make it the primary occupation of our lives. And that means love is also calling us to love beyond our family and our immediate circle, beyond even this religious community.

Love calls us to get outside of our daily lives and beyond these church walls. It is so easy, especially for those of who experience one or more forms of privilege, to remain in this sort of bubble of our closest loved ones and associates, who are often very much like us. We may vote in ways that support greater justice. We may say the right words and know the language of justice. Still though, when the going gets tough, many of us have the option of escaping to our bubbles. We can look the other way.

Holocaust surviver and author, Elie Wiesel, said that “the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.”

So, we must guard against indifference settling in just beyond our immediate awareness. It can lure us into a comfort that denies where love is calling us – to justice. As Cornell West famously said, “Justice is love showing up in public.”

So love is calling us to show up. It is calling us to speak out. Love calls us, for instance, to cry out for dismantling and re-envisioning a criminal justice system that privileges some of us with protection while damning others to terror, mass incarceration, abuse and slaughter at the hands of law enforcement.

Love calls us to rage against police beating to death Tyre Nichols as he pleaded, “I’m just trying to go home,” as he cried out for his mom. This bloodbath in the streets of modern America must end.

Love demands that we continue to demand responsible gun regulations and put a stop once and for all to the massacre of innocent people that continues to plague this country.

Love calls us to denounce the continued efforts in this state to violate the very humanity of our trans siblings.

Love beckons us as love warriors against the decimation of reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy we are witnessing through draconian anti-abortion, anti- LGBTQ laws and so much more.

Love weeps for us to act now in outrage over the practices and policies that are threatening devastation within that sacred web of all existence of which we are a part and have propelled us into a climate crisis. The very future of our children is at stake.

And my beloveds, these are only just a few examples of the ways in which love is calling us to show up in our world for justice.

Our Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry is holding a legislative action day at the state capital on March 13. May love lead as many of us as possible to be present.

So, love moves our outrage toward a sustained and ever growing struggle for justice as we reach for the dream of the Beloved Community fully realized.

Now, I want to close though by returning to some of the words from Valarie Kaur. “Anger protects that which is loved…wonder is the act that returns us to love…revolutionary love can only be practiced in community.”

Again, we need the anger that love drives in us to protect that which is loved, but we cannot exist in the anger. Always, always we must return to the wonder of love.

And we must direct that love even toward those with whom we disagree. We must find love even for those who act in ways that we may view as reprehensible, harmful and immoral. This is how we avoid becoming the same way. This is necessary to making love our primary occupation.

And we need community to hold on to the wonder that makes this possible. Spiritual community like that found here at first Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin. A spiritual community where we care for each other so that we can keep manifesting love in our world.

A couple in our church recently said something to me that I thought was very wise. Like we must love ourselves before we can fully love others, we must care for each other within this religious community so that we are able to help build Beloved Community beyond it. Rev. Jonalu and the Co-Chairs of First UU Cares will be holding a conversation on March 12 on how we may best do that.

I believe that love is calling this religious community to be a righteous voice for it in this, the heart of Texas.

May the universal river of love flow through us. May the unity of all bring us great wonder and give us unwavering strength. May we answer the call of love throughout our days together, bringing into being the Beloved Community, within which divine light radiates.

Amen.

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.

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

We bring our pets for our annual pet parade and animal blessing. We explore how our animal companions so often bless us by helping us find our center.

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 all that dwells below the skies,
let songs of hope and faith arise.
Let peace, goodwill on Earth be sung,
or bark or howl by every tongue.

– Rev Laura Kim Joyner

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

Ask the animals and they will teach you. Or the birds in the sky and they will tell you. Or speak to the Earth and it will teach you. Or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know the breath of the devine has done this. In whose care is the life of every creature and the breath of all human kind.

– Job 12, 7-10

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

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