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

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

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

I WILL NOT DIE AN UNLIVED LIFE
Dawna Markova

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

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.

Sermon

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

Nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear. What?

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

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

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

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

I’m right there with you.

I love this church, and I love this ministry.

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

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

“There will be an answer.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know, blasphemy, right? Bear with me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I stopped struggling and froze – the freeze response.

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

My friend said quietly, “I’m sorry”.

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

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

It seemed to calm them a bit though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Having no fear response, she did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Together, we need not fear even fear itself.

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

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

We are Beloved.

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

SERMON INDEX

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

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

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

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

– Carl Jung

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

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

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

– adrienne maree brown

Sermon

History

Heritage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We can change the plot though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That turned out to be true.

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

He was only reinstated after he threatened a lawsuit.

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

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

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

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

A legacy of less knowing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Throughout its history, the church has supported numerous charities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She got to recounting church stories while we visited.

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

Anyway, again, these are just a few examples.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A-women. Amen. Blessed be.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

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

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

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

– Eli Sowry

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

Every act of kindness, generosity, or love overflows its original bounds. Our acts of kindness, generosity, and love multiply. Stewardship is a call to transformation.

Stewardship is an invitation to do new things in relationship with people in this community and beyond our walls. Generously giving of our time, talents, and treasure to this church community is a radical act of hope that has ripple effects that continue to multiply in people’s lives and in the world. We give because we are invested in the creation of a truly Beloved Community for all.

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

Sermon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is growing and thriving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Folks have formed a new Vegan group.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think that is true for me too.

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

It can even lower our blood pressure.

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

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

Amen.

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

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

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
September 17, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

As a religion without creed, without a set of beliefs to which we must all adhere, our UU spirituality is rooted in relationship. We create religious community though sacred promises we make with one another about how we will be together in the ways of love. We will examine the ancient tradition of covenant making and how we practice it today at First UU Church of Austin.

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

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST PRINCIPLES

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
• journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

FIRST UU CHURCH OF AUSTIN COVENANT OF HEALTHY RELATIONS

As a religious community, we promise:

To Welcome and Serve

• By being intentionally hospitable to all people of good will
• By being present with one another through life’s transitions
• By 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 good will
• By speaking when silence would inhibit progress
• By disagreeing from a place of curiosity and respect
• By interrupting hurtful interactions when we witness them
• By 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
• By honoring our commitments to ourselves and one another for the sake of our own integrity and that of our congregation
• By 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.

Sermon

In May of 2009, same sex marriage was only legal in a hand full of states in the US.

My now spouse Wayne and I had already been together for 18 years. We were already spouses in all but the legal sense.

Still, we really wanted to make that commitment to one another. We wanted to speak our promises to one another about making a life together. We’ve been together 32 years now, so I guess that’s going to happen.

But, we wanted to make it legal, even if that had to be in some place other than this, our home state of Texas.

At that time, gay marriage was only legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa. Iowa?

We decided it would be more fun to get married in Vancouver, Canada instead, where it would also be legal.

We boarded a plane, flew to Denver International Airport, where we then board our connecting flight to Vancouver. A short time later, our plane caught on fire. Just a little electrical fire with smoke coming out of the passenger air vents.

After an emergency landing in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where our plane was larger than the terminal, they put us on buses back to Denver, where we would board a new plane to Vancouver very early the next morning, this time minus the onboard smoke and burning smell we hoped.

Now, this was early on a Saturday morning, and our wedding in Vancouver was scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

BUT, to make it legal, we had to fill out a wedding certificate application, which for some reason in Canada at the time you could only do at this drug store chain which closed for the weekend at noon on Saturday. So, we were in a bit of a hurry when our flight finally arrived at the Vancouver airport.

We rushed to customs, only to find ourselves in line behind a large group of heavy set men and women with grey hair, the men with full beards, many of them wearing Harley tee-shirts and one with a shirt that asked, “Have you been naughty or nice?”

They were there to attend a convention for people who play Santa Claus and were in no hurry to move through customs.

We finally made it through, rushed to pick up our luggage and the rental car and screeched our way to the closest drug store we could find. For some reason, the marriage application process was located in the photo department, where we finally arrived at 11 :45 a.m.

The man behind the counter was an elderly immigrant and did not speak English very well, and he was lovely determined to get us legal. He even made another store employee help him get it done. We signed the certificate at 11 :59 a.m.

That would become only the first time we both cried on our trip to Vancouver to get married.

The next day we were married in a beautiful old Victorian home just across from Vancouver Bay by a wonderful woman, who had to have been a Unitarian Universalist, whether she consciously knew it or not.

It was a glorious, sunny cool spring day. Flowers were in bloom everywhere.

Since we had been together 18 years at that point, so we had thought this would be simple – fly into Vancouver, say our vows, spend an afternoon in the mountains outside the city afterwards, and then fly back home all legally wed.

So we were stunned when we got to the part where we would say our vows to one another, and we both got so choked up that neither of us could speak.

Fortunately, our wedding officiant had been dog sitting a full-size Schnauzer named Marley, who she thought she had locked away in another room.

Just at that moment, Marley broke free and came bounding into the wedding, a squeaky toy between his jaws, which he was loudly engagIng.

She apologized profusely, but we urged her to let him stay. OK, we practically begged for Marley to stay. He did.

He sat right between us, our little “best guy”, periodically punctuating our promises to one another with a squeak. That helped us make it through the rest of the ceremony with great humor and joy.

I am still wearing the ring from when we bought each other wedding rings in those mountains outside of Vancouver.

This morning, we are exploring the concept of covenant, sacred promises we make with one another about how we will dwell together in right relationship – in the ways of love.

Covenant making is an ancient tradition within the Abrahamic religions, and, in fact, a concept of sacred promise making is present within most world religions.

So even in a modern, more secular world, this long history of promise making may help explain why covenanting can hold such a powerful place within our psyches.

Like when Wayne and I got so emotional over making our wedding vows to one another. After all, marriage vows are covenants.

Apparently, these sacred vows or so vital to me and Wayne that we have gotten married again twice since that fateful trip to Vancouver.

Once at the Travis County Clerk’s office after the Supreme Court legalized it across the country and again here at this church when we renewed our vows for our 25th anniversary.

Hey, at least if Wayne and I are going to keep getting married over and over again, we’re doing it with each other!

And covenant is a vital part of our Unitarian Universalist tradition also.

We are a religion without a prescribed set of beliefs, so relationship that call us all toward collective liberation through a set of loving promises we make with one another and our world is what binds together our varied theological perspectives.

We can share loving promises even if we do not always share the exact same beliefs.

If you are new to Unitarian Universalism and/or this church, our call to worship earlier was a set of principles that our UU congregations covenant to affirm and promote together.

The covenant that we all read together is the current version of the promises that participants in this religious community make to one another.

So, this ancient tradition of covenant is what instills it so deeply within our collective unconscious and makes the idea of promise making so holy to us.

And yet, I also think that tradition may contain warnings for us about how we construct our covenants and live them out.

For instance, the Hebrew scriptures are filled with covenants made between God and God’s people.

One of them is a covenant God makes with Noah, after deciding the people of the world had been very wicked and therefore the only choice was to flood the entire planet, drowning all life except for those that Noah had brought aboard a huge floating ark.

After the flood though, God sends a giant rainbow as a symbol of God’s promise never to flood the entire planet again, though God does go on to do a lot of other terrible things to humans.

All of which raises the question: is covenant possible when one side is all powerful and a tad bit temperamental?

This may be best illustrated by the story of Job, a pious and goodfearing man. God makes a bet with one of the angels that Job will remain faithful no matter what happens to him. So, they send many plagues upon Job, killing his entire family and destroying everything he has.

Eventually, Job accuses God of a serious breach of covenant, to which God essentially replies, “Yeah, well, I’m God, so too bad.”

Now God does eventually restore Job to his prior status, and I am having a bit of fun with an overly literal interpretation of these biblical stories, but still, there is a warning here for us about approaching covenant making within relationships of unequal power.

So, for instance, when white culture is dominant, we must be exceedingly careful that our covenants do not just enshrine the mores of that white culture.

In the Movie, History of the World Part 1, Mel Brooks retells the biblical story of when Moses went up to the mountain top and heard the voice of God.

God burned onto stone tablets commandments that the Israelites were to obey as their part of their covenant with God. In Mel Brooks telling, Moses comes down from the mountain top with three such stone tablets of five commandments each.

“My people”, Moses declares, “Hear me. The Lord has given unto you these 15 …” At which point he drops one of the tablets and it shatters into pieces. “Ten. Ten commandments for all to obey.”

Now, that is a humorous take on it, yet I think it also contains a kernel of truth about our promises we make with one another. They must be sacred. They cannot be frivolous to us. They cannot be just words on paper – or stone tablets.

And, again, they are more likely to seem that way if dictated by one person or group to another.

Our promises must be mutually held and encompass that which is most vital to us for living out love together.

They must inspire us to hold ourselves to these promises, and when we inevitably fall short of them because we are human, provide us guideposts for how to come back into covenant, get back into right relationship – like in our Pinkalicious story earlier.

I’ll close with one more story.

When my grandmother was in the last days of her life, she went to my mom’s house after she left the hospital for the last time. My grandmother had end stage congestive heart failure and had decided to go on hospice care. They could only come by my mom’s house periodically though, so the vast majority of caring for grandma fell to my mom.

And that became more and more difficult as my grandmother grew closer and closer to death. She became unable to dress herself, bathe herself or go to the restroom alone.

If you have ever been with someone who is in the final stages of life, they can sometimes seem to be existing between this reality and some other.

My grandmother began speaking the language of her childhood Czech – even though she had not spoken it for many years before that.

She became disoriented and confused and begin crying out of what seemed like frustration. She would sometimes show up in my mom’s living room only partially dressed. She at times became non-responsive and would not eat.

Not knowing how difficult things had become, I called my mom one day during this time just to check on them. As soon as she answered, I could tell things were not good. I asked her how she was. She told me all of the things that were going on with trying to care. After a long silence, she told me that she had been lying on her bed cryIng for my grandmother.

She didn’t know how to keep going. She didn’t know how to keep doing it. I hesitated and then asked, “Do you have to be the one to do it?” After another silence she said, “I promised her I would take care of her.”

My beloveds, that’s a powerful promise made out of the deepest sense of love. Taking care of each other is profoundly bound up within the very heart and soul of our covenants. And so we had to find a way for my mom to both fulfill that promise and reimagine it in a way that was humanly possible. She got help. She came to realize that she did not have to take care of my grandmother alone.

We moved my grandmother back into her own home, where she was immediately more comfortable and less confused. We hired people to stay with her overnight so that my mother could go home to her own house sometimes.

I truly believe reimagining and renewing that promise both saved my mom and brought my grandmother much greater peace during her final days.

And we renew our religious covenants like this too. They are living promises.

We learn. We change. We evolve. And so too then must our covenants.

That covenant among our churches is currently undergoing a review, which our faith does periodically to make sure we are still living into love in the best ways we know how.

Our healthy relations team here at the church is reviewing the church covenant, based upon feedback they have received from some of you and at least in part to address some of the potential issues discussed today. We want you to participate.

It is your covenant and has helped this church remain healthy through so many challenging times.

Tomas Medina from the healthy relations team will be at a table in Howson Hall after the service today.

Please feel free to visit with him and discuss how to keep this set of promises we share alive – how together we can continue to bring the ways of love into full and magnificent being.

Our great Unitarian Universalist Theologian, James Luther Adams wrote, “Human beings, individually and collectively, become human by making commitment, by making promise. The human being as such … is the promise-making, promise- keeping, promise-breaking, promise renewing creature.”

And so our religious vocation as Unitarian Universalists becomes continually renewing the promise of unity and universal love.

What a glorious promise we keep. Amen.

Benediction

Now, as we go out into our world;

May the mission that we share inspire your thoughts and light your way,

May the covenant that binds us together dwell in your heart and nourish your days,

May the spirit of this beloved community go with you until next we are gathered again.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

We come together to begin our new church year with the Annual Water Communion Ritual. We share with one another water that symbolizes something meaningful to us as we blend and mingle the waters that remind us of our shared faith.

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 are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop”.

– Rumi

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
by Langston Hughes

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
August 13, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The pandemic and the necessary isolation that accompanied it changed us and our world in ways we are still trying to understand. As we move through this time, when we hope that Covid may be becoming endemic, it is important that we appreciate all that we have experienced together, as we assess how we approach life, the life of our church, and what we hope to manifest in this new world in which we find ourselves.

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 art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

– Alfred North Whitehead

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE BODY IS NOT AN APOLOGY
Sonya Renee Taylor

The body is not an apology.
Let it not be forget-me-not fixed to mattress when night threatens
to leave the room empty as the belly of a crow.
The body is not an apology. Do not present it as a disassembled rifle
when he has yet to prove himself more than common intruder.
The body is not an apology. Let it not be common as oil, ash or toilet.
Let it not be small as gravel, stain or teeth.
Let it not be mountain when it is sand.
Let it not be ocean when it is grass.
Let it not be shaken, flattened or razed in contrition.
The body is not an apology. Do not give the body as confession,
communion. Do not ask for it to be pardoned as criminal.
The body is not a crime, is not a gun.
The body is not a spill to be contained. It is not
a lost set of keys or wrong number dialled. It is not
the orange burst of blood to shame white dresses.
The body is not an apology. It is not the unintended granules
of bone beneath will. The body is not kill.
It is not unkempt car.
It is not a forgotten appointment.
Do not speak it vulgar.
The body is not soiled, it is not filth to be forgiven.
The body is not an apology. It is not a father’s backhand,
is not mother’s dinner late again, wrecked jaw, howl.
It is not the drunken sorcery of contorting steel round tree.

The body is not calamity.
The body is not a math test.
The body is not a wrong answer.
The body is not a failed class.
You are not failing.
The body is not a cavity, is not hole to be filled, to be yanked out.
It is not a broken thing to be mended, be tossed.
The body is not prison, is not sentence to be served.
It is not pavement, is not prayer.
The body is not an apology.
Do not give the body as gift. Only receive it as such.
The body is not to be prayed for, is to be prayed to.
So, for the evermore tortile tenth grade nose,
Hallelujah.
For the shower song throat that crackles like a grandfather’s Victrola, Hallelujah.
For the spine that never healed, for the lambent heart that didn’t either, Hallelujah.
For the sloping pulp of back, hip, belly,
Hosanna.
For the errant hairs that rove the face like a pack of Acheronian wolves.

Hosanna,
for the parts we have endeavored to excise.
Blessed be
the cancer, the palsy, the womb that opens like a trap door.
Praise the body in its blackjack magic, even in this.
For the razor wire mouth.
For the sweet god ribbon within it.
Praise.
For the mistake that never was.
Praise.
For the bend, twist, fall, and rise again,
fall and rise again. For the raising like an obstinate Christ.
For the salvation of a body that bends like a baptismal bowl.
For those who will worship at the lip of this sanctuary.
Praise the body, for the body is not an apology.
The body is deity. The body is God. The body is God:
the only righteous love that never need repent.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
E. Ciszek and Christina Raymond
Art Carter and Tom Shindell
Evan Mahony and Bis Thornton
August 6, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

As this year’s LGBTQI+ Pride week begins in Austin, we will continue our annual tradition of inviting members of our church community to share their experiences with the intersectionality of identity and faith.

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

JESUS AT THE GAY BAR
by Jay Hulme

He’s here in the midst of it —
right at the centre of the dance floor,
robes hitched up to His knees
to make it easy to spin.
At some point in the evening
a boy will touch the hem of His robe
and beg to be healed, beg to be
anything other than this;
and He will reach His arms out,
sweat-damp, and weary from dance.
He’ll cup the boy’s face in His hand
and say,
my beautiful child
there is nothing in this heart of yours
that ever needs to be healed.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

RUMINATIONS ON THE DEATH OF PAT ROBERTSON
by KC

I don’t like to think
About Pat Robertson going to hell.
That lets him off too easy.
I like to think about Pat Robertson finding himself
In a heaven he never believed
Would exist.
Where Divine is reading in drag
To the children murdered at
Sandy Hook and Ulvalde.
While Edie Windsor
And Gertrude Stein drink coffee
In the breakfast nook
talking politics with Harvey Milk.
Where Matthew Shepard relaxes by
A stream, reading poetry to
A nameless young man whose family
Never claimed his body
when he died Of AIDS.
Where the music plays loudly
Welcoming dancers from the Pulse
And Club Q to the floor where they
Twirl and vogue with
All the murdered trans women of color
Whose names we never knew.
Where Jesus puts his arm around
Pat Robertson’s shoulders and
Drapes them with a rainbow feather boa.
And, gesturing around him says
Come, meet my disciples.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

The speakers are:

E. Ciszek and Christina Raymond
Art Carter and Tom Shindell
Evan Mahony and Bis Thornton

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 23, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Did you know that the church offers several small group ministries where people gather in groups of around 10 to share deeply, explore personal and collective spiritual growth, and develop sustaining, nurturing practices? Join us to hear from fellow congregants who have helped lead such groups and, in doing so, discovered new spiritual horizons that already existed within themselves.

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

From HIDDEN WHOLENESS
Parker Palmer

Philosophers haggle about what to call this core of our humanity, but I am no stickler for precision. Thomas Merton called it true self. Buddhists call it original nature or big self. Quakers call it the inner teacher or the inner light. Jews call it a spark of the devine. Humanists call it identity and integrity. In popular parlance, people often call it soul.

What we name it matters little to me, but that we name it matters a great deal….

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

From HIDDEN WHOLENESS
Parker Palmer

No fixing, no saving, no advising, no setting each other straight. The rule is simple…

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson, Kelly Stokes, and First UU Chalice Campers
July 16, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This week we hosted Chalice Camp, a full-day summer camp for UU kids from all around the Austin area. During worship this Sunday, they’ll be sharing some of the songs, stories, and UU history that they learned this week. We’ll also hear a Bridging Homily from a graduating senior about how their faith has informed their understanding. Join us for this youthful – and very joyful – worship.

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

GENERATION TO GENERATION
by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,
laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship,
crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies
of our passage: when we wed, when we die,
and when we are blessed with a child;
When we depart and when we return;
When we plant and when we harvest.
Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage.
If others impart to our children our knowledge
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is
wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children,
lest they drag out joyless lives,
lest they allow treasures to be lost because
they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords
from generation to generation.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
June 18, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The experience of delight is essential to our spirits. Delight allows us to encounter the transcendent even within the mundane of this world. We will explore what brings us delight and how we may cultivate and find it – how we often discover that our path to delight lies in serving others and the greater good, being a part of creating something larger than ourselves.

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

LISTEN
by Barbara Crooker

I want to tell you something.

This morning is bright after all the steady rain, and every iris, peony, rose, opens its mouth, rejoicing.

I want to say, wake up, open your eyes, there’s a snow-covered road ahead, a field of blankness, a sheet of paper, an empty screen.

Even the smallest insects are singing, vibrating their entire bodies, tiny violins of longing and desire.

We were made for song.

I can’t tell you what prayer is, but I can take the breath of the meadow into my mouth, and I can release it for the leaves’ green need.

I want to tell you your life is a blue coal, a slice of orange in the mouth, cut hay in the nostrils.

The cardinals’ red song dances in your blood.

Look, every month the moon blossoms into a peony, then shrinks to a sliver of garlic.

And then it blooms again.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

SPELL FOR RECLAIMING THE MOMENT
By Adrienne Maree Brown

even now
we could be happy

even now

breathing in
filling our bodies with right now
from the dirt below us
from our toes to our knees
hips up our spines
shoulders to earlobes
the tip top of our heads to beyond
to the stars

breathing wide
across our wingspan
into that sacred and constant silk web
where we belong

breathing deep
inhale back to great grandmother’s bosom
exhale seven generations of blessings
that will come through our
next choices

even now
we can be present

even now

life is right here, still
an erotic pulse kissing your jaw line
a restlessness of mind: too much, too little
there’s still someone you are longing to see
someone who startles you with simple pleasure
just because they exist
even now

we can anticipate harvest
be shocked by the thunderclap, the storm
laugh at the abundance of our grief
and our earnest attempt to avoid the inevitable

we are a delight
we could be another’s blessing
with our brief and epic lives
where every day
we are given the option
of love

Sermon

How would you define “delight”?

The spiritual topic we’re exploring in the church this month is “The Path of Delight.”

I have to admit, when I first started thinking about this, I had trouble defining exactly what we mean by “delight”. I know what it is. I know when I experience it. And yet, how would I put it into words?

Is delight different than joy or happiness, and if so, how so? What path or paths transport us to delight?

How, is delight related to our spirituality?

So, I was lucky when in the midst of my struggle, church member Carolyn Gremminger told me about an episode of National Public Radio’s program, This American Life, titled “The Show of Delights”. In it Bim Adewunmi (ada woon me), a producer for the show, hosts the episode after sharing her own thoughts on delight.

Adewunmi was born in London to parents who immigrated from Nigeria. She talks about learning to organize her life around actively seeking out delight, despite being raised oh so very British, which caused many tut, tut, tuts to go off in her head, as if to say “enjoying yourself a bit much there, aren’t you dear.”

She tells of how discovering a collection of essay’s, “The Book of Delights” by American poet Ross Gay helped her embrace the path of delight.

She interviews Ross for the show, saying that his book “offers up many thoughts on what delight is or what it could be, but it never defines it explicitly. The take away is that delight, while important, is hard to pin down.”

Whew, I thought, “here’s a poet who did a whole book on delight, and he can’t define it either.”

“Yay, I feel better.”

Adewunmi also interviews 5 year old Cole and his mother, as he expresses sheer delight over riding the bus to school for the very first time.

And that’s when I realized that though both Ross Gay or I may not be able to precisely define delight for you, I can bring you the experience of it.

VIDEO of a father and a very young child playing and laughing with an oversized letter W, the father inverting it to become the letter M.

Every time I experience delight now. I may just sing out “double u”!

Actually, this may be one of the things that is distinct about delight. While joy and happiness are obviously a part of delight, this childlike letting go of all other cares in the world, of being attuned to the delight presenting itself in the present moment seems to be a unique aspect ofthe experience.

Delight comes to us when we give ourselves over to it, as we did as children, before we began to carry the worries of our world.

I love how Adewunmi described organizing her life around seeking out delight. I think this may be one of the ways that following the path of delight is spiritual. Life’s pain and disappointment and loss and sorrow will come. In fact, delight and broken-heartedness may not exist, one without the other.

The practice of actively seeking delight helps carry us through when things get more difficult.

Adewunmi interviews a wonderful woman, Noriko Meek. Niriko spent most of her adult life nurturing her husband and children, including several years during which she took care of her husband, as he slowly wasted and eventually died of cancer.

After a period of intense mourning, Noriko has discovered new life at age 72 – life that is, as she puts it, “just delightful, you know.” She says now she allows herself to do what she wants, when she wants. She hikes. She travels constantly. She’s seeing the world.

Now, she allows herself to experience delight in even the mundane – her heated toilette seat, her ballet class for seniors, eating discounted donuts for breakfast, reading biographies in bed for two hours every night.

And in all of this, Noriko Meek has discovered another spiritual aspect of following the path of delight – it enables us to experience the transcendent in even the seemingly mundane.

Our poet, Ross Gay, discovered this while creating his book by writing an essay about something delightful every day for a year. Here is part of what he described on the very first day, as he visited a favorite coffee shop:

“A cup of coffee from a well shaped cup.

A fly, its wings hauling all the light in the room, landing on the porcelain handle as if to say, “Notice the precise flair of this handle, as though designed for the romance between the thumb and the index finger that holding a cup can be.”

Or the light blue bike the man pushed through the lobby.

Or the topknot of the barista.

Or the sweet glance ofthe man in the stylish short pants (welllotioned ankles gleaming beneath), walking two little dogs.

Or the woman, stepping in and out of her shoe, her foot curling up and stretching out and curling up.”

Transcendence revealing itself from amongst the everyday.

And whether it emerges from the every day or out oflife’s larger experiences such as witnessing the birth of new life, delight comes to us more often, if we engage in the practice of recognizing it.

Again in Ross Gay’s words, “It didn’t take me long to recognize that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study.”

Now, here is one more spiritual aspect of delight. It is an essential part of our humanity – our interconnectedness.

Gay says that we are “negligent” if we don’t share our delights with one another.

And we so often find delight in being a part of something larger than ourselves – something that contributes to a greater good.

In our story for all ages earlier, delight emerged as much or more from the creativity James and Danny and their community had engaged in together as it did from the finished product.

The volunteer efforts of so many of you that Celeste celebrated earlier create so much delight in this community, as you make it possible for us to truly live into our values and mission together. As your minister, I experience so much delight witnessing this church and the folks who create it grow – both numerically and in spirit, again, due in such large part to these volunteer ministries. And that delight happens both within these church walls and beyond them.

Not long after I began ministry with the church, I had gone to Boston, to attend the first year Ministers’ retreat that our Unitarian Universalist Association offers at their offices.

I was at the airport for my return trip home, when my cell phone rang. It was our senior minister at the time, Meg Barnhouse, calling to let me know that the church was going to offer immigration sanctuary to Sulma Franco, invite her to live in the church to try to prevent her being deported to her home country of Guatemala where she might be harmed or even killed because she had publicly advocated for LGBTQ rights while still living there.

Meg wanted to know if! would be OK with that, as in had a choice, but that was Meg (and she knew I would be more than OK with it).

I couldn’t contain my glee, as she told me about how a church board member had responded to the possibility of providing sanctuary by stating that this fits exactly with our mission, asking “if we don’t do this what do we do”?

I was filled with delight.

Before becoming a minister, for seven years, I had been the executive director of American Gateways, a non-profit that provides immigration legal services and advocates on behalf of immigrant rights.

I had carried that into ministry when I did my internship at Wildflower Church, helping them set up an immigrant detention center visitation program and several other immigration related ministries. Immigration justice and the struggle against the racism and bigotry so embed within our immigration system had become just, part of who I was and what drove me as a person and a minister.

So, there I was in Boston Logan, teary eyed and gleeful over this church taking such a faithful leap toward justice. I think I may have squealed a little like the small one in our video earlier, because folks at Boston Logan were staring at me like I was suffering some sort of crisis nerveosa, not knowing it was actually a fit of delight.

I felt much the same way more recently, as our folks participated in actions at our Texas State Capital.

Despite some really terrible things that were happening this legislative session, there was a sense of exhilaration sometimes that arose from showing up as UUs, joining together with so many other solidarity partners in a co-conspiracy of radical love crying out for justice. Justice that we WILL eventually bring about.

These are just a couple of examples of how delight so often arises when we join together in loving relationship to reach for something greater than ourselves. That same delight then moves us toward building even more of that something greater – the Beloved Community.

And aren’t we fortunate then, that, here at first Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, our path of delight is following those words we emblazoned on our wall and that we say together every Sunday.

And to that, may we say, “Double You”!

Benediction

From the Hinu text, the Veen Yana Vuyer Va Tantra

I have been listening to the hymns of creation,
Enchanted by the verses,

Yet still I am curious.

What is this delight-filled universe into which we find ourselves born?

What is this mysterious awareness

Shimmering everywhere within it?

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
June 4, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In this traditional Unitarian ceremony, everyone is invited to bring flowers to church. Then, during the service, we will hold our annual ritual where we bless the flowers and then share them with one another. What might this annual ritual tell us about human flourishing and delight.

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

ALL OF US ARE BEAUTIFUL
By Thomas Rhodes

We come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.
Some of us grow in bunches.
Some of us grow alone.
Some of us are cupped inward,
And some of us spread ourselves out wide.

Some of us are old and dried and tougher than we appear.
Some of us are still in bud.
Some of us grow low to the ground,
And some of us stretch toward the sun.

Some of us feel like weeds, sometimes.
Some of us carry seeds, sometimes.
Some of us are prickly, sometimes.
Some of us smell.

And all of us are beautiful.
What a bouquet of people we are!

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

FLOWER COMMUNION
By Lynn Ungar

What a gathering-the purple
tongues of iris licking out
at spikes of lupine, the orange
crepe skirts of poppies lifting
over buttercup and daisy.

Who can be grim
in the face of such abundance?
There is nothing to compare,
no need for beauty to compete.

The voluptuous rhododendron
and the plain grass
are equally filled with themselves,
equally declare the miracles
of color and form.

This is what community looks like-
this vibrant jostle, stem by stem
declaring the marvelous joining.
This is the face of communion,
the incarnation once more
gracefully resurrected from winter.

Hold these things together
in your sight-purple, crimson,
magenta, blue. You will
be feasting on this long after
the flowers are gone.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
May 28, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We need our most creative spirits to manifest the holy in our world. Indeed, becoming, changing, engaging in constant acts of creation and re-creation are the essence of our growth and spirituality, And we are at our most transformative and transformed when we co-create in communion with one another and the web of existence.

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 universe buries strange jewels deep within all of us and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to discover those jewels, that’s creative living.

– Elizabeth Gilbert
Big Magic, Creative living Beyond Fear

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

CREATION IS MESSY
Rev. Laurel Mendes

Creation is messy,
Inconvenient,
And often uncooperative.

Take a look at the cosmos.

Go ahead, close your eyes and imagine the stars.

When you do, forget the Franz Josef Haydn “spacious firmament” bit. His images are far too tidy.

See the real mess the universe made of itself 14 BILLION years ago.

All of creation is still trying to clean THAT up.

It’s called the Big Bang,
Not the Grand Coalescence,

For a reason.

Mistakes were made (probably),
And incorporated into the whole anyway.

And wonders never cease, here we still are muddling along 14 billion years after the fact.

Now open your eyes and look around you.
You are surrounded by the most astounding miraculous wonder of all:
Each other,
Community,
Life ongoing caring about life ongoing.
So it is.
So it shall be, because we do care

Sermon

VIDEO

Our reading earlier was about how creation is messy.

So, I thought the Blob Opera exercise from “Google Arts and Culture” made a great metaphor for this.

The video you just saw was from my experimenting with it. You just go to Blob Opera online.

Then, you use your pointing device to to drag the blobs in different directions, which allows you to create different voice types and melodies.

You literally create a musical “opera” out of some blobs. And our creative process is so often like that.

Our creativity emerges out of the “blobiness”.

It seems science and philosophy have both begun to posit that our greatest creativity most often comes out of messiness, when we are blocked, confused, unsure.

Creativity arises from uncertainty; our unknowing.

Mystery holds almost infinite creative potential.

Chaplains, hospice workers and artists will tell you that there is even, or maybe especially, creativity bound up with our grief also.

So, as we examine creativity, our spiritual topic this morning, we do so with some humility, knowing that so often we owe our creative spirit to the uncertainty, sometimes even the great challenges or difficulties in our lives.

Here is an example from our own Unitarian Universalist history. II Each Sunday morning, we begin and end our worship services by lighting and then extinguishing our chalice, which is a symbol of our faith.

SLIDE

In fact, this is the current logo of our Unitarian Universalist Association.

Well, Unitarian Universalist minister and historian Susan Ritchie describes how this symbol of our faith came to be.

During World War II, the Unitarians formed the Unitarian Service Committee, which operated a rescue and relief operation helping folks escape the Nazis in Europe.

Its director, Rev. Charles Joy, began to feel that the operation needed a symbol of hope that both refugees and those trying to assist them could carry on paperwork to denote that they could be trusted, as German informants were widespread across Europe at the time.

Rev. Joy turned to an artist who was himself a refugee from the Nazis, Hans Deutsch, to create a symbol that would represent the spirit of their work.

Deutsch created the flaming chalice design.

Eventually, sympathizers would also begin to draw the symbol in the dirt outside their home, as a signal to those in need of a safe place to stay: a light in the darkness.

Deutsch’s flaming chalice, ensconced in a circle representing unity, would become the symbol of the American Unitarian Association.

When the Unitarians and the Universalist merged in 1961, the Universalists had a similar symbol that “featured a large, open circle with a very small, off-centered cross inside … that … signified how Universalism had grown out of the Christian tradition but was still held open to a world of other possibilities … “

Out of the two, the newly formed Unitarian Universalism adopted the flaming chalice with two overarching circles.

As to how this two dimensional symbol developed into the three dimensional actual chalice we light to mark our services today, Ritchie says we are not entirely sure.

However, she writes, “All evidence, though, suggests that the path leads through our children’s religious education programs.” Beginning in the 70s, our religious educations programs started teaching children about the chalice and encouraging them to make chalices using different media.

They eventually created objects which could be lit.

The first documented uses of lighting a chalice in the main sanctuary occurred when children and youth led worship and demonstrated the practice to the adults.

How wonderful then, that it seems children may have taken a symbol of hope, created out of the worst of situations, and turned it into a symbol of faith for our entire denomination.

There is something very spiritual about that.

And indeed, for all of recorded history, we humans have associated creation, creativity, the creative process with spirituality. I’ll share just a few current examples with you.

The first is a concept called ontological design.

VIDEO

Here is a brief explanation. So, what we create then directs what we become.

We create language and then that language creates us. It defines the parameters of our becoming.

Our technology, these smart phones, social media, scientific experimentation, and on and on, they come out of our seemingly almost endless creativity AND they are creating who we are becoming.

Certainly, our architecture, our urban design, our energy production and use (and our pollution), all products of human creativity, also form the environment in which we live and therefore the manner in which our continuing evolution will turn.

I think this is true of the the cultures and societies we envision and create also.

Will we dream ourselves into ever more powerful ways of creating the Beloved Community?

Will our ontological designing create liberation for all?

Rev. Dr. Martin King, Jr. once said, “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

Given our current status quo, that creative maladjustment is still a necessary component of dismantling that status quo and designing something new that will in turn create us anew.

And it doesn’t get much more spiritual than that.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for writing, “Eat Pray Love”, has another spiritual concept about our creativity.

In another book, “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear“, she writes that we might think of our creative impulses coming to us from these sorts of spirits she calls “geniuses”.

These spirits can be tricksters, ornery and demanding.

This is actually an ancient idea. The concept of a Genie was related to this.

These geniuses are the source of our creativity if we remain open to them, find them, pay attention to them.

If we don’t, they may well move on to someone else.

Gilbert tells the story of this happening after she met and became friends with another author, Ann Patchett.

Gilbert had been neglecting a genius that wanted her to create a novel set in the Amazon jungle.

In letters they were exchanging, Gilbert learned that Patchett had also begun working on a novel set in the Amazon jungle, though it was too early at the time to know exactly what it would be about.

Here is how Gilbert describe what happened the next time they met.

Ann told me that she was now deep into the writing of her new book …

I said, “Okay, now you really do have to tell me what your Amazon novel is about. I’ve been dying to know.”

“You go first,” she said, “since your book was first. You tell me what your Amazon jungle novel was about – the one that got away.”

I tried to summarize my ex-novel as concisely as possible. “It was about this middle-aged spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years. He gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person go missing, and my character gets sent down there to solve things, at which point her quiet life is completely turned into chaos.

Also, it’s a love story.”

“You have got to be” … (word that rhymes with trucking) … “kidding me.” (said Ann)

“Why?” I asked. “What’s your novel about?”

She replied, “It’s about a spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years. He gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person go missing, and my character is sent down there to solve things. At which point her quiet life is completely turned into chaos.

Also, it’s a love story.”

Now, whether you completely buy Gilbert’s tale and her theory about “genius spirits”, many, many other people have also described this experience of what they create coming from something outside of themselves.

Something that often feels greater than themselves.

Author, artist, poet and playwright, Julia Cameron in her book, “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” writes, “The creative process is a process of surrender … In dance, in composition, in sculpture, the experience is the same: we are more the conduit than the creator of what we express.”

Theologian, Martin Buber said, “Creation happens to us, burns into us, changes us. We tremble and swoon. We submit.”

I have (only too occasionally) experienced this with writing poetry or sermons.

Every once and a while, not nearly always, I will sit down to write and will lose all track of time and my sense of self.

Not always – sometimes writing for me is more like pushing a boulder up a hill with lots of grunting, straining, occasional cursing and many, many stops, starts and rolling backwards.

But just occasionally, I will find myself sitting there, staring at a screen filled with words I don’t remember creating, and wonder, “Who wrote this?”

I shared this experience many years back, with our now Minister Emerita, Meg Barnhouse, and she replied with her best southern accent, “Oh, loooove it when that happens. That’s the holy spirit workin’ right there”

Anyway, Elizabeth Gilbert believes we made a huge mistake during the renaissance when we began to think of creativity coming from the self of the individual human genius, rather than from genius spirits.

Here is how she describes that mistake.

VIDEO

Perhaps, these “spirits” are actually the creative potential that arises within us when we glimpse the vastness of our true interconnectedness.

Research, has begun to find that our creativity is rarely a solo, individual act. Even the great artists produced their work out of creative interplay with others and their environment.

In an article titled “The End of ‘Genius”, the New York Times describes how creativity arises out of innovative networks, often creative pairs.

And many studies have found that we are the most creative when we work together with people whose life experiences are different than our own – whose world views differ from our ours.”

Diverse groups in terms of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation and the like produce more creative outcomes.

And this idea meshes well with two theologies that support the values and principles of our UU faith.

For collective liberation theology, opportunity for each of us is bound together with liberation for all of us. Only together can we all reach for our greatest creative potential.

Likewise, process relational theology views each of us as processes of becoming, in every moment evolving into something new, all of us always and constantly changing.

Because processes by their very nature are relational, again, each of us can only become our fullest self when we answer the call to enhance the creative possibilities for all.

For this theology, the divine is the ultimate process, which holds all of us within and lures us toward our most creative potentiality.

In this way, we co-design the divine together, even as we are being guided in our own becoming.

Whew, that’s some heady stuff.

Perhaps Julia Cameron expresses the idea that the divine beckons us toward our most creative selves more simply when she says, “I would say that as we become more spiritual we automatically become more creative, and as we become more creative we automatically become more spiritual. I’m not sure why that is. It just seems to me to be a fact … And to be facile I might say it’s God’s will for us to be creative.”

Italian-American psychologist, art therapist, and writer, Lucia Capacchione goes further and says, “The person who says ‘I’m not creative’ is uttering blasphemy.”

And psychologist Dan Gilbert adds, “Human beings are a work in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.”

We are all artists then, even if we’re not painters, sculptors, musicians, poets, authors or any of the things we commonly think of us the creative.

Our lives are our art; our great creative endeavor. So, together, let’s:
Compose life as a great concerto.
Imagine it as a Pulitzer-Prize winning play,
Paint it as a magnificent painting,
Carve it into a breathtaking sculpture
Choreograph it as a dance in which all humanity moves in communion with one another and with all that is.

May we live life as if we are creating God together.

Because perhaps we are.

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 and Kelly Stokes
May 21, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

One of our church ends (goals) states, “We embody the principals of Unitarian Universalism and invite people of goodwill to find a spiritual home with us.” Our church is growing in both numbers and multiculturally. This both provides all of us greater creative potential and requires greater creative efforts and openness from each of us.

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.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Anthem

DREAM ON
Steven Tyler

Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
Oh, it went by like dusk to dawn
Isn’t that the way?

Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay, oh, oh, oh
I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it’s everybody’s sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life’s in books’ written pages
Storing facts learned from fools and from sages
You view the earth

Oh, sing with me, this mournful dub
Sing with me, sing for a year
Sing for the laughter, and sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Dream on
Dream on
I dream on
Dream a little, I’ll dream on
Dream on
I dream on
I dream on

Dream a little, I’ll dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
I’ll dream on
Dream on
Dream on
I dream on

Oh, sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, and sing for the tear
Sing it with me, if it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Reading

THIS GRACE THAT SCORCHES US
Jan Richardson.

Here’s one thing you must understand about this blessing:

it is not for you alone.
It is stubborn about this.

Do not even try to lay hold of it if you are by yourself, thinking you can carry it on your own.

To bear this blessing, you must first take yourself to a place where everyone does not look like you or think like you,

a place where they do not believe precisely as you believe, where their thoughts and ideas and gestures are not exact echoes of your own.

Bring your sorrow.
Bring your grief.
Bring your fear.
Bring your weariness, your pain,

your disgust at how broken the world is, how fractured,
how fragmented by its fighting,
its wars,
its hungers,
its penchant for power,

its ceaseless repetition of the history it refuses to rise above.

I will not tell you this blessing will fix all that.

But in this place where you have gathered,

wait.
Watch.
Listen.

Lay aside your inability to be surprised,
your resistance to what you do not understand.

See then whether this blessing turns to flame on your tongue,
sets you to speaking what you cannot fathom

or opens your ear to a language beyond your imagining that comes as a knowing in your bones,

a clarity in your heart
that tells you this is the reason we were made:

for this ache that finally opens us,

for this struggle, this grace that scorches us toward one another and into the blazing day.

Sermon

– Kelly Stokes’ homily may be heard on the audio but the text is not available.

– Chris Jimmerson

OK, let’s have a moment of communal releasing of guilt or shame if we were sitting here thinking, “Geez, I have some of those scripts Kelly just described”.

We all do.

These scripts come out of our life experiences; The culture in which we grew up; The culture in which exist now; The very societal waters in which we swim.

We take them on without even realizing it.

Sometimes though, they are unhelpful or just plain wrong.

Sometimes they can harm others, even when that is not at all our intent.

Left unchecked, these scripts can arise out of what social scientists call, “implicit bias” – when we hold attitudes or stereotypes towards people without our conscious knowledge.

Importantly, we don’t have to hold any explicit prejudice for implicit bias to be lurking about outside our awareness.

So conveniently, you can uncover them by taking an implicit bias test online at projectimplicit.net.

And, there is good reason to do so, because research shows that unearthing such biases can be a first step toward changing these unconscious scripts.

Now, a few warnings:

First, It can be disconcerting or even upsetting to get a test result that says, “I’m biased”.

Second, our level of implicit bias can change depending on our social environment.

Here’s an example.

I was in a seminary class on racial justice in Chicago. The class was very diverse, so our discussions were rich and included perspectives from folks of a variety of different races and ethnicities.

During the class, we each took the implicit bias test on race. I was all proud of myself because my test showed no racial bias whatsoever.

And then three weeks after I got back to Austin, I took it again, and it showed a slight bias. I was pretty upset with myself.

And then, I got to thinking, “What was I was a seeing when I watched television? Who were most often the bad guys? How often did all the protagonists look just like me?”

That’s when I stopped watching network TV.

Though I will admit to streaming Ted Lasso religiously these days. Anyway, after a few weeks of cutting out network television, the implicit bias began to disappear again.

Finally, because of the potential for internalized oppression, when folks from historically marginalized groups take the test, it can sometimes show that we have a negative bias toward, well, ourselves. Not fun!

So, while I encourage you to explore these implicit biases and tests, please also know that I am available to you if you find yourself troubled by the results.

And exploring them is important, because implicit biases too often get expressed in behaviors that unintentionally marginalize other people.

These are often called “micro-aggressions”.

Please be aware though, that term can be problematic because the impact of such behaviors is often anything but “micro” for those on the receiving end of them.

Better descriptions include “exclusionary behaviors” or “unaware othering”.

For now though, if you want to delve into this more, you will still need to search the term “microaggressions”, as it is what has been used in most of the research.

And I am going to send you to a website – microaggressions.com where people have submitted their own experiences of these, exclusionary behaviors, because these experiences provide such a powerful way to truly grasp the impact of them.

And exclusionary behaviors can happen here at our church, as Kelly noted, even when our intent is to welcome and create connections with one another.

Let me give you just a couple more examples.

One exclusionary question can be asking, “What do you do?” For many other cultures, ones work is not as central to personal identity as it can be among white professionals.

In fact, I grew up in a blue-collar culture, where career and self- identity are far less bound together, so when I was younger and got asked this question, I was often confused by it.

“I hike? Go to movies? Read? Breathe? I dunno!”

Another example of potentially “unaware othering” is to assume someone was not born in the U.S. because of how they look or sound to us and then ask, “So, where are you from?”

A friend of mine, who was born in the U.S. to parents who had lmmigrated from Korea, told me she always wants to answer that question with, “Beaumont, TX. What’s your God-forsaken place of birth”.

Apologies to Beaumont and my family who still live in the area. So, let’s uproot implicit bias.

Let’s work hard to become more aware of our scripts and get creative about ways we might engage one another to avoid this unaware othering and instead create welcoming, connection, Beloved Community.

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