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Rev. Chris Jimmerson and AJ Juraska
June 30, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

So often, we recoil against overly literal interpretations of the bible that at best seem irrational and at worst harmful. What if rather than a “literal- factual” understanding of biblical scripture, we embraced scholar and theologian Marcus Borg’s “historical-metaphorical” approach instead? Might then the bible become poetry of love and justice?

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

READING THE BIBLE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME;
TAKING THE BIBLE SERIOUSLY BUT NOT LITERALLY
by Marcus J Borg

“… stories can be true without being literally and factually true … A metaphorical approach to the bible thus emphasizes metaphors and their associations … metaphors can be profoundly true, even though they are not literally true. Metaphor is poetry plus, not factuality minus.”

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

“The Bible is like Santa Claus and sex. Children hear about it on the playground or on the street, whether or not their parents discuss it with them. And as an adult, if you don’t enjoy it and wish to abstain, you can successfully avoid it only by taking extreme measures such as total social deprivation or profound isolation.

The Bible is holy scripture because it is the living document and foundation of many important faiths, including Unitarian Universalist. To abandon the Bible would mean alienation from one of the world’s most important influences on religious thought-liberal and otherwise …. Our concept of respect for the web of existence, for instance, emanates from a stream of thought that flows through the Psalms and the Prophets from that same God of Genesis who declared the goodness of creation.”

– Rev. David McFarland

Sermon

AJ Juraska’s Homily

I just finished my first year of seminary. If you had told me five years ago I would be in seminary, I would have been shocked. Even more so by the fact that I am attending a Christian seminary.

I wanted to attend a Christian seminary in part because I knew that whether I end up being a chaplain, a parish minister, or working on social justice issues, living in Texas means that I will be exposed to Christian viewpoints and references to the Bible. The more I learn about the Bible, the more I realize that the Bible is hidden in plain sight all around us – in song lyrics, art, writing, common sayings, and so much more. The song we heard earlier, Turn Turn Turn by Pete Seager, is from Ecclesiastes Chapter 3. While working on this homily, I learned that Emily Dickenson’s works reference the Bible.

A part of me also hoped that, by going to a Christian seminary maybe I would find myself identifying as a Christian again. I grew up in a Christian church and I miss some of the magic I found there, and the belonging in having a shared text. Being a UU can be hard in that way. When I used to play roller derby I would often get asked “but where is the ball.” I think the equivalent in UUism is “where is the central text that you all read and agree on.”

As it turns out, though, even the Christians don’t agree on a central text. Catholics include different books of the bible than Protestants. So we’re not even all reading the same Bible. It took hundreds of years after Jesus’ death before there was even a semblance of agreement on what books to include, and the order to read them in.

The books of the Bible were written in a time and a place. As my New Testament professor says, some of what we are reading is essentially someone else’s mail. Paul is writing to early Christian churches to try to guide them in how to be successful in this new endeavor, especially at a time when Christians were persecuted and there was debate over who could be included in this new church.

So why should we read something written nearly two thousand years ago that has context and meaning for a time so long in the past? Unitarian Universalist Minister John A Buehrens answers us in his book Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals. He says, “Progressive people simply cede their power to opponents when they leave interpretation of our religious heritage, or the meaning of our nation, or authentic ‘family values,’ to the reactionaries, the chauvinists, and the bigots.” He goes on to say that if we reject the Bible, it, quote “doesn’t mean that it ever goes away. Rather it simply means that it ends up only in the hands and on the lips of others – often reactionary others-where it can and will be used against you.”

Buehrens is right. Louisiana just passed a law requiring public school classrooms to display the ten commandments. Texas tried to pass a similar bill last session, and we can bet it will be on the docket again come next year’s session. We can shout about separation of church and state all we want, but the Bible isn’t going to leave our political dialogue any time soon.

While the ten commandments are a part of the bible, they are cherry-picked, in that, according to Jewish tradition, there are actually 613 commandments or mitsvot in the Bible. Most of these mitsvot cannot be followed for a variety of reasons, including that they require being in the temple which was destroyed.

One of the big questions in the early Christian church was whether the early Christians needed to follow the law, in other words the commandments. The New Testament in part is grappling with this question, and there are different interpretations of whether the Jews and the Gentiles, the Christians who do not have Jewish heritage, need to follow the law.

Laws to post the ten commandments might still get passed, but imagine if more teachers knew this context, and could explain that the ten commandments are just a selection of the 613 laws that one ancient group thought were appropriate for governing themselves.

For all my humanist friends in the audience, I promise we haven’t forgotten about you. In fact, Buehrens calls himself a Biblical humanist. He points out that one can have a foundation in the Bible without believing it reveals something about the supernatural.

The Bible has a lot for us to learn. I took a class on the book of Judges last semester, and I’m taking a class on Revelation in the fall (fun fact, it’s Revelation without an S at the end, not Revelations as I know I had said my whole life). Judges is one of the harsher books in the Bible, with lots of violence including some of the most horrific violence against women in the text. Through analyzing the book, I came to learn all the ways it can be read, including as a feminist piece, one that in talking about violence against women is in fact speaking out against it. It can also be read as a tract against kingship, and many parts of the Bible are speaking out against empire.

Like much of the Bible, Revelation chapter 13 was written in a way that people of that time and place would have understood, but we do not if we try to read it literally. It talks about beasts but is in fact coded writing against the Roman empire. This is the chapter that includes a reference to 666, or 616 in some of the manuscripts. 666 and 616 are actually codes for Emperor Nero, not a literal devil.

So where do we go from here? I don’t have all the answers, and I know Rev. Chris has some more to share with us as well. I don’t necessarily recommend trying to sit down and read the whole Bible. I do recommend looking at a study bible and learning how to use the footnotes and references. If you’d like to learn more about how to do that, I’ll be teaching a workshop called Reclaiming the Bible on July 14th from 1-3pm here in the church. We’ll go over how to look up passages and the meanings behind them using study bibles and other reference tools. An announcement will be going out soon about that workshop if you are interested.

There are also great books like John A Buehrens’s book, which I have here if you’re here in person and would like to look at it. I also have a few other books up here that you’re welcome to look through after the service. If you want to take a deeper dive, you can audit a class at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary or another seminary. There will be a class in the fall on the Hebrew Bible taught by one of my favorite professors that is mostly asynchronous, for example.

The Bible that I have discovered in seminary is not the one that I was taught as a child growing up in a Christian church. It is both more violent and more beautiful and poetic than the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, and Jesus from my childhood had led me to believe. If you find yourself afraid of or unsure about the Christian Bible, know that you are not alone. There are many of us who share those concerns.

I know that many come here with religious trauma from Christianity and the Bible. If engaging with the Bible is painful for you, honor that. No one should have to engage with religious or spiritual practices that cause harm. I am still on my own journey when it comes to the Bible. I have discovered some verses that I really like, such as James chapter 2 which talks about how faith without works is dead, or James chapter 5 which warns rich oppressors that God sees the harm they have caused. I have yet to draw the spiritual comfort from the Bible that I see so many others have-something a part of me wishes I had too.

I’m grateful for the UU value of pluralism, which celebrates diverse theology and honors that we can draw from more than one source of spiritual wisdom. The Christian Bible is one source of spiritual wisdom, but it is not the only source, and I appreciate the opportunity to explore all these wisdom traditions in this religious community. Thank you.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson’s Homily

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

That’s the Gospel of John chapter 3, verse 16 of the New testament.

King James Version. Don’t you just love the King James language? “Believeth.” “Begotten.”

Some of you have heard me talk before about how I was raised as a Southern Baptist and said I wanted to be a minister when I was a very young child, even preached sermons into the cassette tape recorder my parents had given me.

One such “baby” sermon was based upon that bible verse.

It is amazing to me that all of these years later and having rejected the fundamentalist religion of my childhood, I can still remember John 3: 16 word for word. King James version, no less.

Here’s why I think that matters.

Regardless of our religious upbringing, despite a culture that has gown more and more secular over time, the words and images and metaphors of our largely bible-based religious history have become embedded within our our cultural symbols, mythologies, values, rituals, traditions – indeed the very language with which we think and communicate, and therefore imbedded within our individual subconsciouses as well.

So, as our reading earlier describes, the bible is still pervasive in our society, and is a large a part of our Unitarian Universalist liberal religious heritage.

So to though, are more fundamentalist interpretations of the bible, like that of my Southern Baptist childhood, also imbedded within our cultural landscape.

And so part of my spiritual journey through adulthood has been to reclaim the biblical narratives that got so implanted into my formational inner psyche in ways that parallel my evolving values and understandings of life.

I have learned to reinterpret and re-embrace the sacred texts of my younger self – like that one from John 3:16.

More on that shortly!

Marcus J. Borg, author of our Call to Worship earlier, urges us to read the bible as poetry plus rather than factuality minus.

Instead of interpreting the bible as literally and factually true, we may find greater wisdom if we mine it for historical and metaphorical truths.

So, if for example we take the well known story of Noah and the flood, and has so often been done, try to accept it as literally true, we are forced to either reject it entirely as defying rational belief or to read it as a fantastical tale of an angry and vengeful God extinguishing almost all life on earth, as retribution for the wickedness of humankind.

But, if we understand that historically, civilizations that predated the origins of the Noah story had similar mythology about floods – floods that were both terribly destructive but also in some way washed cleaned the world and created circumstances through which new life might arise, then, then, we might come to understand the Noah story in a quite different way, metaphorically.

Brothers were killing brothers. Injustice prevailed. Violence had grown rampant.

Humans were engaging in physical relations with the angels.

We were filled with hubris and disregard for our fellow humans. We had moved away from love and justice.

And so, symbolically, the story may be seen as humankind cleansing itself of these violations of our deepest, most life-giving and fulfilling values and rebirthing a rootedness in love and justice.

God, then, becomes a profound inner calling toward our deepest values that move us toward thriving and fulfillment.

And over and over again throughout the bible, a literal-factual approach, too often leads to using the bible to inflict a vengeful God upon other people we don’t like or want to dominate.

But if we move instead toward this historical-metaphorical approach, then over and over again, we find story after story in the bible that becomes a poetry of love and justice – over and over again, a calling to cleanse ourselves of greed, violence, and injustice – over and over again a fervent cry for living lives of love and justice.

And I think developing our ability to return the bible to its poetic grounding in love and justice is vital for at least two reasons:

The first is that, as already mentioned, the bible is a fundamental part of Unitarian Universalist heritage. If we throw it out, we lose a rich metaphorical inspiration for many of our most cherished concepts and values.

The second though, it that we are seeing in this country an eruption of mostly white, Christian Nationalism that would brandish literalistic interpretations of this scared text to banish love and justice for all but themselves and turn our government into a white, Christofacist patriarchy.

And lest we think that is hyperbole, just consider that Louisiana has made in mandatory to post the ten commandments in every school classroom, and Oklahoma has just required that the bible be taught in every classroom.

I can only cringe at what literalistic, fundamentalist take on the bible will get taught.

I want to ask them just how they plan to teach commandments such as “Thou shall not commit adultery” or “Thous shalt not covet thy neighbors wife … nor his manservant.”

I know I’m always telling my neighbors, “don’t you go coveting my manservant.”

Once again, gotta love the King James.

The editor and chief of Christianity Today recently told of several pastors relating to him how after preaching about the sermon on the mount, several of their church goers complained that it was too “woke”.

And that returns me to the Christ story encapsulated by John 3:16 with which we began.

You see my beloveds, we have to be able to counter these selectively factual, fundamentalist readings of the bible with our own metaphorical perspective, proclaiming love and justice.

We have to proclaim and reclaim Jesus as the preacher of that sermon on the mount where he declared:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace makers, those who are persecuted for righteousness.

Jesus was no blond haired, blue eyed, white, Christian nationalist warrior. He was a dark skinned, ultra woke, anti-empire, champion for love and justice, who over-turned the tables of the money changers in the temple, expressed a preference for the poor, and disenfranchised and hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors and the chronically unemployed, also know as his disciples.

For me, John 3:16 is a poem about a love so powerful, so selfless and boundless that we’re willing to give all of ourselves all we have begotten to create love and justice for all in our world so that humankind may flourish and thrive.

And that, is our life everlasting. Amen.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

And now, as we go out into our world today, may we see the poetry in our lives.

May we find the holy metaphors in all of the sacred texts of our tradition.

May we encounter the sacred in all that surrounds us.

May center ourselves in love and justice.

May the congregation say, “Amen” and “blessed be”.

Go in peace.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 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

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
May 5, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We often talk about how divided we are politically, societally, and religiously. Many a magazine article lately has even featured how so many of us are even feeling divided among the many parts within ourselves. What if we valued these differences though? What if, with loving intent, we put them into conversation with one another? Might not this pluralism help us all grow our own depth and breadth of being by many multiples?

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

– Walt Whitman
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.

– Rumi
There are many ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE SACRED HOOP

Then I was standing
on the highest mountain
of them all,

And round beneath me
was the whole hoop
of the world.

And while I stood there
I saw more than I can tell

And I understood
more than I saw.

For I was seeing
in the sacred manner
the shape of all things
of the spirit.

And the shapes
as they must live
together like one being.

And I saw that the sacred hoop
of my people
was one of many hoops
that make one circle,
wide as daylight and starlight,

And in the center grew one
mighty flowering tree

To shelter all the children
of one mother
and one father.

And I saw that it was holy.

– Black Elk

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

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.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 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 21, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our church and our faith have a long history of doing justice in our world. We will explore our current efforts to build the Beloved Community and how you can get involved. Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to do justice, as does our church’s mission. Our spiritual practices sustain us in that work. In turn, building Beloved Community can be a vital source of our own experience of spiritual nourishment and transcendence.

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

BELOVED COMMUNITY

“Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.”

– The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (Adapted)

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

Exerpt from MARTIN LUTHER KING JR’S WARE LECTURE to the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in 1966

I’m sure that each of you has read that arresting little story from the pen of Washington Irving entitled Rip Van Winkle. One thing that we usually remember about the story of Rip Van Winkle is that he slept twenty years. But there is another point in that story which is almost always completely overlooked: it is the sign on the inn of the little town on the Hudson from which Rip went up into the mountains for his long sleep. When he went up, the sign had a picture of King George III of England. When he came down, the sign had a picture of George Washington, the first president of the United States.

When Rip Van Winkle looked up at the picture of George Washington he was amazed, he was completely lost. He knew not who he was. This incident reveals to us that the most striking thing about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not merely that he slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution.

While he was peacefully snoring up in the mountains a revolution was taking place in the world, that would alter the face of human history. Yet Rip knew nothing about it; he was asleep. One of the great misfortunes of history is that all too many individuals and institutions find themselves in a great period of change and yet fail to achieve the new attitudes and outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution.

And there can be no gainsaying of the fact that a social revolution is taking place in our world today. We see it in other nations in the demise of colonialism. We see it in our own nation, in the struggle against racial segregation and discrimination, and as we notice this struggle we are aware of the fact that a social revolution is taking place in our midst. Victor Hugo once said that there is nothing more powerful in all the world than an idea whose time has come. The idea whose time has come today is the idea of freedom and human dignity, and so allover the world we see something of freedom explosion, and this reveals to us that we are in the midst of revolutionary times. An older order is passing away and a new order is coming into being.

Sermon

Sarah Frankie Summers

I always thought of the flame in the chalice as representing the spark of the divine within each of us. I guess that I came up with that as a kid because sparks, fire, yeah it made sense. I knew the story about the Austrian artist and fighting the Nazis and just figured it made a cool origin story but didn’t think about how that affected my life in the present day.

I also figured the chalice was vague enough to be open to interpretation, since a “free and equal search for truth and meaning” is a core of our religion, so people were going to have their own interpretations of it, and that’s a good thing.

Interestingly, a pamphlet about the flaming chalice by Susan Ritchie says this about it:

When we light the chalice in worship, we illuminate a world that we feel called upon to serve with love and a sense of justice. The flame is what one of our beloved congregational hymns terms “The Fire of Commitment.”

Well, now that resonates with me too. Especially because the story I was told while interning at the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office was that the Unitarians and the Universalists started working together at the UN before the organizations even finished merging. So I have been describing this religion as a “social justice faith” since I was nineteen.

At least from this perspective (and of course we can tell our stories from many perspectives that shed different lights depending on what we want to convey) – so at least from this perspective, the present day iteration of Unitarian Universalism is largely predicated on our work for justice and making the world a better place. But I always framed it as work the church was doing – again, not necessarily thinking beyond my own passion for recycling and ethical eating. But thinking of this flaming chalice as the Fire of Commitment also recognizes the significance of our own First UU chalice lighting, particularly the part that goes: “As our struggle becomes our salvation.” and here is where I was finally moved to action.

I admit when I first came to this church, two things stuck out to me that I wasn’t too sure about. I don’t know that they rubbed me the wrong way per se, but they were new and therefore uncomfortable. They were also confusing because they seemed a little too connected to a Christian theology with which I had no connection.

The first thing was that part of the chalice lighting “as our struggle becomes our salvation.” And the second thing was this bit of the mission about Beloved Community.

I guess I’ll be completely honest. I thought something along the lines of what the heck are these people on about? Beloved Community sounded exclusive. And why was it capitalized?

I stuck around, trusting it would make sense in time. Sure enough, Meg and Chris took to explaining this idea from time to time during the Moment for Beloved Community. They would often point to the King Center for more information on Beloved Community, so I turn there now for some of Dr. King’s words.

King said that

“Agape [love] does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes” and “makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.”

He felt that justice could not be parceled out to individuals or groups, but was the birthright of every human being in the Beloved Community. “I have fought too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concerns,” he said. “Justice is indivisible.”

There is so much more information about Beloved Community on the King Center website – I encourage you to check it out for yourselves. This radical idea of Beloved Community makes sense to me. And it was during one of these moments for beloved community, when Meg had taken to driving home the ways white supremacy thrives on inaction – the relative comfort of a status quo that keeps the power structures stable – that the chalice lighting finally clicked.

How does our struggle become our salvation in the Unitarian Universalist faith? For me, that “struggle” is to stop turning away from the discomfort of looking in the mirror and seeing how I still carry the invisible backpack of white privilege. For me, that struggle is to overcome the inertia of inaction and to get up and do what I can to create change. For me, that struggle is meeting others whose ideas and values differ vastly from mine and listening with compassion, the work of finding common ground.

Recall the reading that Ani did a few minutes ago. This was Dr. King speaking directly to the Unitarian Universalists. Directly to us! He could tell we were inclined toward justice, but perhaps a little lazy about it. “Don’t sleep through the revolution!” he said.

Well, I’d been sleeping. I’d been resting on my UU upbringing, thinking that just being a part of this church was enough. That the church was doing the work of justice. But of course WE are the church. And we are the ones who have to do the work.

But do not despair in the overwhelm of all there is to be done. There are so many awesome ways to get involved here!

First UU has an amazing history of social action work, which I know was promised we would discuss, but in the interest of galvanizing you to take your own actions, I will tell you instead about the work that is being done at present. Our pillar leaders will be in Howson Hall after service with resources and ways to get involved, as well as microactions you can take TODAY. A microaction is a small step you can take with the potential for big impact, especially when many people take part.

Peggy Morton is our point person for Immigrant Rights. Visit the Immigrant rights table to sign-up to receive a link to sign a petition from Austin Sanctuary Network that calls for everyone in Travis County to have an attorney at their first appearance before a magistrate judge, including individuals targeted under the controversial SB-4 law.

Elizabeth Grey spearheads the team working for Reproductive Justice. Stop by the Reproductive Justice table to learn about the anti-abortion clinics posing as resources for pregnant persons and how to get the word out about these places known as crisis pregnancy centers that target vulnerable teens in particular with unscientific information.

Richard and Beki Halpin are the fearless leaders of the Environmental Justice arm, with many thriving programs aimed at addressing the climate crisis. Stop by their table for tools to reduce your carbon footprint. The time is critical and celebratory! Earth Day is tomorrow. A blessed day for many of us here to remember the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part.

Ginny Fredericks leads the Racial Justice group in tandem with Scott Bukti. Stop by their table to pick up a list of Black Owned Businesses and head over to one this week. We want this year to be First UU’s first ever Juneteenth service, so sign up if you want to lend your support to our BIPOC group who is working hard to plan this in tandem with TXUUJM.

Vanessa McDougal is our resident Voting Rights and Democracy expert. Stop by her table today to pick up a sample ballot for Austin’s upcoming election and make your plan to vote. For the first time, Travis County is electing 3 TCAD appraisers. Early voting starts tomorrow and runs through April 30th; election day is May 4th.

Leo Collas is our LGBTQIA+ Rights Pillar Leader (as well as one of our congregation’s TXUUJM reps). He has invited you all to join the Community Heart Circle today at 2pm in Room 13. They follow a format similar to Chalice Circles, so if you’d like to get a feeling for UU spiritual discussion groups, please join us and make new friends!

Each of these groups represents a pillar of social action here at First UU. We formed the current pillars after conducting a survey and analyzing the data to see where people were presently galvanized and where we already had leadership, but there is always more room for work to be done! For example, we had an awesome team of First UUers at iACT’s Hands on Housing event earlier this month. This is an interfaith action group that supports low income Austin homeowners. Any way you want to get involved and share your time, we could use your talents! I look forward to talking with you all after church at the tables in Howson about staying awake through the struggle of how you can help with the work of building the Beloved Community.

Chris Jimmerson

I’d like to start this morning with a story that I first told many years ago, I think the first time I shared this pulpit with our minister emerita, Meg Barnhouse, right after she had promoted to full-time minister with the church.

I also shared it at the installation service of a dear friend.

To offer some context, I’ll start with another quote from the Rev.

Dr. Martin Luther King, “Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

And, of course, Dr. King also made popular the term “Beloved Community”.

I think that, especially for Unitarian Universalists, we often experience the spiritual or religious when the two meet, those experiences of unutterable fulfillment, of which Dr. King spoke and the creation of Beloved Community – the bringing of love into our larger world as justice and liberation for all.

So, back in 2013, a Texas state senator named Wendy Davis became nationally famous when she held a long filibuster against a proposed bill that at the time we thought imposed unbelievably draconian restrictions on women’s reproductive freedom in Texas.

My spouse Wayne and I joined a group of Unitarian Universalists from across the state to support a large rally held on the steps of the Texas State Capital to protest the bill, as well as other attacks on women’s rights.

We all showed up in our bright yellow Unitarian Universalist tee shirts, and folks from our church gathered around our big, bright yellow First UU Church of Austin banner.

The women’s rights groups that had organized the rally absolutely loved it, so they put us right behind the speakers for the rally.

The event drew a huge crowd, and near the end of it, we noticed that all eight of us holding up the banner at the women’s rights rally were men.

That didn’t seem so unusual for UUs, so we just shared some amusement about it.

After the rally though, as I was walking to my car, a woman I had never met touched my shoulder. I turned to her. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I just want you to know how moving it was for me to see a group of all men holding up your church banner.”

Then she looked away briefly, turned back to me and said, “You know, I don’t think of myself as religious, but I’m going to have to find out more about you folks.”

I guess we were both stunned by the movement of something sacred that was occurring between us in that moment, because neither of us said anything for a while.

I don’t remember how long we just stood there or which of us broke the silence first, but I do remember that at some point she asked where she could get one of our bright yellow Tee Shirts, so I gave her the web address for that and some information about our local churches.

I don’t even think if we exchanged our names.

I will tell you though – I still have never been happier to call myself a Unitarian Universalist than I was in that moment.

I have never been more grateful to be reminded that the religious&; can happen anywhere and at any moment and that we are called to be there for it.

“Unutterable fulfillment” and doing justice, building the beloved community are inseparably linked, and it is in this interrelationship between the two that I believe our Unitarian Universalist faith flourishes.

That event was over 10 years ago, and if anything, I have come to believe this even more now and to believe it is even more vital now that our Unitarian Universalist faith flourish like never before.

The bill which Wendy Davis filibustered eventually got passed in a special session of the Texas Legislature.

We thought it was so horrible at the time because it did things like banning abortion beyond 20 weeks and imposing stringent requirements on physicians and clinics, making it much more difficult for them to continue providing abortions services.

Little did we imagine then, how much worse it would get by now. And of course, it’s not only reproductive justice that is at risk these days.

Which is why we so critically need all of the social action pillars you heard about earlier:

• Reproductive Justice
• Racial Justice
• Environmental Justice
• LGBTQ Plus Rights
• Immigration Rights

Our very democracy itself are all under seige. 

I’ve got some news for the forces of bigotry and oppression though Wendy Davis’s filibuster has never really ended. More and more of us have just picked it up and are expressing it in a multitude of ways.

It is not over.

This is not over.

You have awakened the sleeping giant. There is a great rumbling across the land. We are seeing it in elections and voting and public action over and over agaIn.

We are coming for justice and liberation. And we will not be sleeping though this revolution – a revolution that will once again alter the face of human history – a revolution that has already begun.

This is our moment for unutterable fulfillment. We shall overcome. We shall all be free. We shall live in peace.

That dream of Beloved Community lies just upon our horizon.

And love – love will guide us there.

Amen.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

As we go out into our world today, may we know the spiritual fulfillment of working together to do justice.
May we find solidarity beyond these church walls with the many, many folks in our community and our world, who like us, are striving to build the Beloved Community.
Guided by love, may we remain ever awakened to the revolution.
And in doing so, nourish souls and transform lives, including our own.
May the congregation say, “amen” and “blessed be”.
Go in peace.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 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 11, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In our mission, we say that we “do justice”. What if truly doing justice requires not just new ways of thinking but new ways of being? Equity instead of equality? Liberation versus liberalism? Proximity rather than paternalism? What if we moved beyond charitable compassion to a love that is revolutionary?

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

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! – and listens to their testimony. – James Baldwin

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

– Howard Zinn

Sermon

I want to share something with you.

VIDEO

That’s Danez Smith, award winning poet, writer, and performer who identifies as queer, non-binary, and HIV positive.

It is part of their poem “Principles”.

If you get the chance, it is well worth watching the rest of their performance, which you can find on YouTube. Their words demand to be heard.

Because Danez Smith isn’t calling for incremental fixes to a country filled with so many systems of oppression and denial that we can no longer believe that those systems are “broken”.

When year after year, we witness the continued killing of unarmed BIPoe folks by law enforcement – When one out of every seven police interventions results in bodily injury – When we know that one out of every eight black person in the U.S. will be sent to prison –

When year after year after year, despite both so called liberal and so called conservative interventions, inequities by race, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation and more continue to persist in employment, income, wealth, housing, healthcare, education, food and nutrition, well just about every facet of life in the U.S., every system and sector of our society, we have to face the reality that these systems are not broken.

They are functioning exactly as they are intended.

They are concentrating more and more wealth and power within the control of fewer and fewer folks.

And still, most of them white. Most of them male. Most of them heterosexual. Most of them Cis. Most of them already born into power and wealth to begin with.

That’s the system.

So, Danez Smith is crying out not to repair America around the edges, but to replace our fundamental societal structures with something entirely new that lives up to the values of justice, liberty, and the potential for human dignity and fulfillment we claim to hold.

Here is more of what they have to say:

i want to be a citizen of something new.
i want a country for the immigrant hero.
i want a country where joy is indigenous as the people.
i want a country that keeps its word.
i want to not be scared to drink the water …
i want a country not trying to cure itself of me …
I want a nation under a kinder god.
I want justice the verb not justice the dream.”

Danez Smith is “talkin bout a revolution”. My words, not theirs.

Well, those of Traci Chapman in the lyrics of her song we heard earlier.

And so, if are to make justice a verb, to do justice as we say in our mission, if we are to tear down the systems of injustice we have now and build new ones – build The Beloved community – we need a revolution in our ways of thinking and being in our world.

Folks as diverse as Bryan Stevenson, social justice activist and law professor to faith activist Rev. William Barber, provide what I think are at least fours ways in which we can create that revolution.

The first is to root our work for justice in a theology that moves and sustains us.

Now that word theology can sometimes freak out some Unitarian Universalists (UUs for short) because it can imply a creedal belief system involving a God or Gods.

But it does not have to involve these things.

Rev. Dr. Elias Ortega, of our UU Meadville Lombard Theological School describes how theology can be “practices of being, thinking, and acting in the world” that move us toward that which we hold most vital.

For Unitarian Universalism, our theology grows out of traditions embracing the unity of all life and creation and a universal love that flows through our universe and our lives.

Our is a living, ever evolving theology of collective liberation, that values all people and beings, especially lifting up those of us who experience marginalization and inequity.

It is a relational theology that recognizes that each of us can only reach for our fullest creative potential when all of us are able to do so.

In the famous words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

We need one another.

The revolution, the Beloved community, can only become when it is co-created by us all.

And such a theology moves us to the second way we might build a justice revolution.

In the late 80s and early 90s, I was involved in non-profit HIV / AIDS research, education, treatment and humans services.

All greatly needed because so many people were suffering and dying from the disease.

And even though I could see every day how much this charitable work was necessary, I started to grow more and more depressed and disillusioned, as more and more people I had come to know and love died, one after the other.

I remember at one point looking through my contact list and realizing that at least a third of the people in it had died of the disease.

And so I began to realize that only providing charitable support, as much as it was needed, was doing nothing to address the systemic racism and anti-LGBTQ bigotry that were blocking people from learning how to keep from getting the disease in the first place and accessing treatment once exposed.

I began to see the complete lack of humanity in a healthcare system and drug development process that exist to worship the Gods of profit at the expense human life and wellbeing.

And so I knew I had to also get involved in activism and building new systems to replace those that were quite literally killing people.

Research from Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation reveals that the vast majority of charity in the U.S. actually goes from the wealthy to the wealthy – to healthcare facilities, institutions of higher education and the like that serve mainly the very rich.

And as I had discovered with HIV/AIDS, charity, wherein most often the powerful determine what and how to give to the less powerful, can frequently serve to uphold systems of inequity by alleviating just enough pressure to prevent the rebellion against them that might otherwise arise.

As educator and philanthropic innovation researcher Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen says, “Charity is about helping people survive. Justice is about helping people thrive.”

A theology of collective liberation moves us beyond charitable compassion toward a revolutionary love that dismantles the unjust systems creating the need for charity in the first place.

And this leads us to a third and corresponding way we can revolutionize how we do justice.

A relational theology requires us to be in proximity to those with whom we are trying to be in solidarity.

Mother Teresa once said, ” … it is fashionable to talk about the poor, it is not so fashionable to talk with them.”

We call for justice, yet we don’t want the multi-family, low cost housing project in our neighborhood.

We prefer to drive across town to volunteer for the charity health clinic.

And don’t put that homeless shelter in the old hotel down the street.

And lest we think this is a conservative versus liberal issue, research indicates that liberal enclaves are some of the most segregated in the country.

As our call to worship pointed out earlier though, to change systems, we have to be in conversation with those who are most affected by those systems.

And, further, collective liberation theology calls us to follow their lead.

In 2015, I joined a group ofUU’s from across the country in Selma, Alabama at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the march for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Several of the mostly white UU s there had to be told that, no, they would not be at the front of the commemorative march across that bridge.

The black folks who had organized the event and whose lives had after all been most affected by the history being remembered were perfectly capable of leading their own march.

Here’s an example of when we’ve done better.

First UU helped to form the Austin Sanctuary Network, and from the beginning the sanctuary network has centered in its leadership folks most affected by our inhumane immigration system.

Collective liberation theology moves us from paternalism to proximity.

Finally, I believe that our faith is strong enough, our underlying theology powerful enough, that it can sustain us through the discomfort in which we will have to dwell at times in our journey toward transformation.

Discomfort?

What in the world is Rev. Chris on about now?

Go with me for just a moment into some discomfort that exists right here within this here very church.

We have had a lot of surveys, listening sessions, and the like in the church over the last couple of years, haven’t we?

Well, some themes around where we feel discomfort have occasionally emerged.

For instance, we want First UU to be a strong force for justice in our world.

And there is some discomfort talking about politics in church.

But you know, a lot of what happens regarding justice or injustice, is enacted through legislation or through court rulings, both of which are driven by politics.

So, while we are prohibited from supporting political candidates or parties, we must move through any discomfort around justice-related political issues, whether in church or in the public arena.

I can assure you our fundamentalist faith counterparts have no such discomfort.

And further, given the need for revolutionary change that Danez Smith proclaims in their poem …

And given that far too often our political choices these days seem to be between regressivism at worst and painfully slow incrementalism at best, we will need even more than political engagement.

We will need more than protests and marches.

We will be required to dream of new societal systems and structures and to begin living out them out, sometimes in rebellious ways, within our daily lives.

And that can be extremely uncomfortable for those of us for whom the current systems provide privilege.

As author and activist Arundhati Roy says of war, “Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe.”

UU theologian (and one of my favorite people), Sharon Welch, applies this to the many aspects of our lives in her book, “After the Protests are Heard“.

She writes that we must notice “the ways ways our everyday decisions already create more justice.”

And though that awareness may sometimes bring discomfort, changing even small acts in our daily lives, as our reading earlier described, germinates seeds of hope and transformation.

Here are some of Danez Smith’s thoughts on that hope.

VIDEO

My beloveds, rooted in faith, we can move the mountain. Sustained by a theology of liberation for all of us, every single one of us, now, now, we’re talkin’ bout a revolution.

Benediction

As we go out into our world now, may you carry with you a sense of the great river of love that flows through our universe and through each of us.

A revolutionary love that moves us toward equity, justice, and the realization of the Beloved Community.

May you also carry with you the love of this religious community, until next we are gathered again.

May the congregation say, “Amen”, and “blessed be”.

Go in peace.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 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
January 21, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our Universalist heritage professed that God is love and would save everyone – “universal salvation”. No one would be condemned to hell. We have come to think of this as a universal love that calls us to “love the hell out of this!world” (thank you, Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford). Universal love calls us to create universal salvation in this world and in this time.

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

“The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.”

– bell hooks

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

IF BELL HOOKS WROTE FIRST CORINTHIANS
Rev. Sr. Tess Baumberger

Love is caring, affectionate, and loyal
It recognizes, knows, and respects the other.
Love is committed and trusting.
Love takes the risk of loving
Love is never hurtful, abusive, or neglectful. It does not coerce or dominate, Neither does it spoil or over-indulge.
Love is ethical, accountable and responsible.
Love does not lie to avoid conflict or to manipulate.
Love does not lie to trick or deceive.
Love is open and honest, but with a positive slant.
Love lives with integrity that wills cooperation
Though it is satisfying to love, Love is not about getting one’s needs met, nor solely about meetings others’ needs. True love is made of mutuality.
Love is a generous giver, and in giving it learns to receive.
Love places another’s interest on the same footing as our own.
Love is not so much a feeling as an action, A continuing active choice to nurture another’s wellbeing.
There can be no love without justice and equality. Therefore love requires that we subvert patriarchy, white supremacy, consumerism, ableism, anti-queerness, and all other forms of oppression.

Sermon

“Love is the doctrine of our church: The quest of truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer. To dwell together in peace, To seek knowledge in freedom, To serve humanity in fellowship, To the end that all souls shall grow in harmony with the divine Thus do we covenant with each other.”

Those words are from a covenant written by early 20th century Universalist minister, Rev. L. Griswold Williams that many our our fellow Unitarian Universalist congregations still affirm during their worship service each Sunday, including our Texas sibling, First Unitarian Church of Dallas.

Actually, it originally ended with “Thus do we covenant with each other AND WITH GOD, but the God part got removed in many later versions because, rather than reclaiming the term, we seem to have sometimes developed an allergy to the word “God”. In fact some of our churches use a similar version of it, written by a Unitarian Minister, that begins with “Love is the SPIRIT of this church”, instead of “doctrine. Rather than reclaiming it, we also seem to have developed an allergy to the word “doctrine”.

But I digress. Anyway, I wanted to start with this heritage of centering our faith in covenant, the promises that we make to one another about how we will be together in the ways of love, which we inherit from both our Unitarian and Universalist forbearers.

Today we’ll be particularly considering how our Unitarian Universalist or UU faith has begun to much more explicitly reclaim also centering our faith in a theology of universal love, bequeathed to us by that second U, Universalism.

Now, this religious community, our church, has a covenant that we call our “Covenant of Healthy Relations”, which I think is wonderful, because it acknowledges that love is not just a feeling.

It is also a verb.

We have to know what actions we will take, how we can live out love as a religious community on an ongoing basis.

At our December congregational meeting, we adopted a new version of our covenant, as a result of the great work of our healthy relations team, Julie Paasche, Tomas Medina, and our lay leader this morning, Margaret Borden.

They listened carefully to you all, folks from the congregation and engaged with another in some great discussions to discern how our covenant might better help us embrace things like our UU 8th principle and its call for us to dismantle racism and oppression.

So to begin, I would like to invite Julie, Tomas, and Margaret to lead us in a unison reading of the result of their great work – the new version of our covenant.

As a religious community, we promise:

To Welcome and Serve by:

 

• Being intentionally hospitable to all people of goodwill Celebrating all aspects of diversity
• Treating others as they wish to be treated
• Being present with one another through life’s transitions Encouraging the spiritual growth of people of all ages

 

To Nurture and Protect by:

 

• Communicating with one another directly in a spirit of compassion and goodwill
• Ensuring those who wish to communicate are heard and understood
• Speaking when silence would inhibit progress Disagreeing from a place of curiosity and respect Interrupting hurtful interactions when we witness them Expressing our appreciation to each other

 

To Sustain and Build by:

 

• Affirming our gratitude with generous gifts of time, talent, and money for our beloved community
• Honoring our commitments to ourselves and one another for the sake of our own integrity and that of our congregation
• Forgiving ourselves and others when we fall short of expectations, showing good humor and the optimism required for moving forward Thus, do we covenant with one another.

 

Many thanks to our wonderful healthy relations team! “Thus, do we covenant with one another.”

Thus, do we promise to dwell together in the ways of love.

And that love is love with a capital L – a Universal Love that we draw theologically from our Universalist heritage.

Now, differing variations of Christian Universalism go all the way back to the very earliest days of Christianity.

Universalism was, and for some still is, a belief that God is all loving and would never condemn any of us to an eternity of damnation in hell – that God would eventually offer salvation to all souls.

This is why the term All Souls often shows up in the names of some of our UU churches.

This idea that God’s love is pervasive and includes everyoneGod’s love is universal- shows up over and over again in some form throughout the history of Christian religion.

And the idea that God’s universal love leads inevitably to universal salvation has been extremely controversial, also throughout Christian history.

It turns out, a lot of people really hate it when you get rid of hell. More on that shortly.

It was here in America though that the IDEA of Universalism actually came to take the institutional form of churches and societies of churches.

Now, our origin myth and miracle story for how universalism came to America (and eventually our UU faith) involves John Murray, a Methodist preacher from England who had converted to Universalist beliefs there.

After the death of his first wife and their infant son, as well as then being thrown into debtors prison, a dispirited Murray, his faith in doubt, gave up preaching and immigrated to America in 1770.

Upon arriving on the American coast, Murray’s ship got grounded on a sandbar.

While waiting for his ship to get freed, Murray went ashore, where he met a farmer named Thomas Potter, who had built a chapel on his land to accommodate itinerant preachers.

Upon learning that Murray was a preacher, Potter was convinced that Murray had been sent by God to proclaim the gospel in his chapel.

Murray resisted, but Potter convinced him to preach if the ship was still not free by that Sunday.

God kept the ship stranded past Sunday (at least from Potter’s point of view), so Murray preached. He made such a great impression that he ended up getting invited to spread the good news of Universalism up and down the East coast of the American colonies, eventually founding a Universalist church in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

And like many if not most origin myths and miracle stories, this one is not entirely true.

It was more likely a seasonal lack of wind than God that got and kept Murray’s ship stranded.

Universalism had already taken root in several other religious sects in the colonies.

And, in fact, Murray didn’t even focus on Universal Love and Salvation in his preaching at first. It was more likely his charisma that got him invited to preach throughout the area, at least in the beginning.

So the story is more complicated than the way in which we often tell it. But complicated stories don’t make for very good miraculous origin myths!

Incidentally, it is absolutely true that we get a strong heritage of feminism from American Universalism.

Murray’s second wife, Judith Sargent Murray, was an essayist, poet, and playwright – in the 1700s.

She advocated for women’s progress, and, under pseudonyms, sometimes male, she published such articles as “Desultory Thoughts Upon the Utility of Encouraging a Degree of Self-Complacency, especially in Female Bosoms” and “On the Equality of the Sexes” in the 1700s!

In 1863, Olympia Brown became the first woman to gain full ministerial standing from any denomination in America when she was ordained by the Universalist Church.

Perhaps the most influential force in the development of Universalism though, was the self-educated minister, orator, debater and writer Hosea Ballou.

He espoused ultra-universalism, the idea that God would not condemn humans to hell for any period of time at all, which led to much controversy and conflict with more traditional Universalists who believed God would temporarily condemn the wicked to hell for some unspecified period of time before eventually saving all souls.

The leaders of other denominations that were firmly committed to hell as a means for controlling human behavior, REALLY hated the idea.

Ballou firmly asserted that God was the embodiment of eternal love and seeks the happiness of all humans. He was convinced that once people knew this, they would take pleasure in living a moral life and doing good works.

In a famous story, Ballou was traveling with a Baptist minister one afternoon. The Baptist minister looked at him and said, “Brother Ballou, if I were a Universalist and feared not the fires of hell, I could hit you over the head, steal your horse and saddle, and ride away, and I’d still go to heaven.”

To which Ballou replied, “If you were a Universalist, the idea would never occur to you.”

Another time, an elderly woman, firmly committed to religious beliefs involving the depravity of human nature queried Ballou on whether he frequently asked his parishioners, “0, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

Hosea Ballou responded, “No Madam. That class do not attend my church.”

I kind of feel that way about this church!

So, here is why I have given you this extremely brief and thoroughly incomplete taste, this smattering of stories from our Universalist inheritance.

As I mentioned earlier, our UU faith is reclaiming the relational, love-centered legacy of our Universalist heritage that has sometimes been overshadowed by the also extremely important focus on reason and individual autonomy of our Unitarian roots.

Though again, it is more completed than that. Both of our traditions contained elements of all of this and more.

Anyway in the time since our two Us merged in 1961, we have translated the Universalist concept of an all loving God, offering universal salvation after death, into a Universal Love that offers salvation in this world, in this life, in the here and now.

A Universal Love that like that big umbrella from our story earlier shelters us all under a shield of justice -love that when practiced moves us all toward liberation and freedom, as bell hooks wrote about.

The early 20th century Universalist minister and scholar Clarence Skinner wrote that Universalism answers the primal question of how we can “transform this old earth into the kingdom of heaven”.

My friend, the Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford, lead minister of LiveOak UU church, just says it calls us to “love the hell out of this world”.

Our UU theologian, Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker refers to what I am calling Universal Love as being “alive and afoot in the cosmos … ” In this church, we sometimes call it as a river of love that flows through our Universe.

We began the sermon today with exploring how our UU faith is centered in covenant.

The covenant that we make with our fellow UUs throughout our faith is contained in Article II of our Unitarian Universalist Association bylaws.

These are the promises that all UUs make with one another about how we will dwell together in the ways of love.

Well, for over 5 years, our larger UU faith has been engaging in a process to update that covenant between all UUs, just as we did for our church covenant, though we didn’t take nearly as long.

Now, I do not have time to go into the details today. You can find more information at www.uua.org

Here though, is a graphic representation of the values we would covenant to affirm and promote under this proposed update.

Now being UUs, some of our folks affectionately refer to this graphic as “the love flower.” And some of our folks derisively refer to this graphic as “that love flower.”

However, you feel about the graphic, it does illustrate how we might center our covenant in love.

Universal Love practiced through the values of Generosity, Pluralism, Transformation, Equity, Interdependence, and Justice.

Universal Love that, when lived through these values, moves us “towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.”

My beloveds, as we face the many challenges of this election year – the frankly terrifying wave of authoritarianism flowing through our country – the war and violence in our world – the rampant injustices – the ongoing violations of the inherit worth and dignity of so many – centering ourselves in Universal Love is going to be more vital than ever.

And perhaps, just maybe, by centering ourselves in that Universal Love – we can take George Harrison’s words from our anthem earlier and make them universal:

Give us, ourselves, one another, and our world, love Give us love
Give us peace on earth Give us light
Give us life
Keep us all free from birth.

Who knew George Harrison might be a Universalist?

Amen.

Benediction

TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL
by Maya Angelou:

 

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 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 & 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

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

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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

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