Resistance is NOT Futile

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

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


Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

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

– Evette Dionne (Free Black Girl)

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

BREATHE
Lynn Ungar

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

I need you to breathe.

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

Sermon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIDEO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author and activist Adrienne Marie Brown, writes as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIDEO

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

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

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

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

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

VIDEO

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

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

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

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

VIDEO

BODIES OF RESISTANCE
Sonya Renee Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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


SERMON INDEX

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

PODCASTS

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

A Faithful Undertaking

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

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


Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

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

– Lokota Proverb

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

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

– Hindu Srimad-Bhagavatam

Sermon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All of the pine trees were dead.

And this is happening all over the Rocky mountains.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And my beloveds, it is a crisis.

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

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

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

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

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

And it is a personal and a spiritual issue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIDEO – “SeaLevels”

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

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

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

SLIDE – “Extinct”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And these worries have some legitimacy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We must know that these too ARE spiritual practices.

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

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

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

SLIDE – air capture

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

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

I want to show you just one of their graphics.

SLIDE – “drawdown”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIDEO – “blessed unrest”

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

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

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

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

VIDEO – “values”

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

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

SLIDE – “leo”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


SERMON INDEX

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

PODCASTS

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

Love Calls Us Forth

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

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

 


 

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

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

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

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

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

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

Sermon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a short explanation of this.

SERMON VIDEO

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

At memorial services, I sometimes quote Kahlil Gibran:

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SLIDE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

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

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

2023 Animal Blessing Service

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

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

 


 

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

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

– Rev Laura Kim Joyner

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

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

– Job 12, 7-10

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

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

PODCASTS

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

2023 Burning Bowl

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

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

 


 

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

When you have the courage to shape your life from the essence of who you are, you ignite, becoming truly alive. This requires letting go of everything that is inauthentic. But how can you even know your truth unless you slow down, in your own quiet company? When the inner walls to your soul are graffitied with advertisements, commercials, and the opinions of everyone who has every known and labeled you, turning inwards requires nothing less than a major clean-up.

Traveling from the known to the unknown requires crossing an abyss of emptiness. We first experience disorientation and confusion. Then if we are willing to cross the abyss in curious and playful wonder, we enter an expansive and untamed country that has its own rhythm. Time melts and thoughts become stories, music, poems, images, ideas. This is the intelligence of the heart, but by that I don’t mean just the seat of our emotions. I mean a vast range of receptive and connective abilities, intuition, innovation, wisdom, creativity, sensitivity, the aesthetic, qualitative and meaning making. It is here that we uncover our purpose and passion.

–Dawna Markova, From “I Will Not Die an Unlived Life”

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

BURNING THE OLD YEAR
Naomi Shihab Nye

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

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

2022 Christmas Pageant

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
December 18, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We join together for the awe and wonder of our Annual Christmas Pageant as we hear and perform the famous story and sing beautiful carols.

 


 

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

WINTER SOLSTICE
By Rebecca Parker

Perhaps
for a moment
the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant, in the stillness,
the chiming of the celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness, and then
gracefully
tilts.
Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.
We are not alone.
In the universe there moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter earth’s axis
toward love.
In the immense darkness
everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars,
cradled in a swaying embrace,
rocked by the holy night,
babes of the universe.
Let this be the time
we wake to life,
like spring wakes, in the moment
of winter solstice.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

WORDS OF WISDOM
by Dr Howard Thurman

There must be always remaining in the individual life some place for the singing of angels — some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and by an inherent prerogative, throwing all the rest of life into a new and creative relatedness — something that gathers up in itself all the freshets of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright light of penetrating beauty and meaning — then passes. The commonplace is shot through with new glory — old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the hardness of life, despite all the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

Uncertainty Anchors

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
November 27, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We have been experiencing a great deal of change and uncertainty in our lives and even within the church. Change and uncertainty are inevitable in life – sometimes even desirable. What sustains us though, what do we hold onto during times of greater than usual uncertainty?

 


 

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 (1861-1947)

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

There’s a thread you follow.
It goes among things that change.
But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die;
and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

– William Stafford

Sermon

Several years ago, I was a student chaplain at what was then the public hospital for our area, Brackenridge, which has since been replaced. The floor to which I had been assigned had a section of rooms that were for in hospital, hospice care to, as much as possible, keep people out of pain while we worked to get them into a hospice out in the community or arrange home hospice.

I got to know a woman who, through a great deal of hardship, had immigrated from Korea. I’ll call her Lillie though that was not her real name.

Lillie had been diagnosed with end stage lung cancer. She had a teenage son and daughter. She and her children had been the victims abuse by her former husband. Her greatest concern was for her children and what might happen to them after her death.

Lillie was a part of an evangelical, very conservative religion, and yet as we talked together, we found spiritual common ground in our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people.

She also had a deep reverence for the interdependent web of which we are a part. She had been an avid gardener and hiker before she got sick. Nature, the interdependent web was where she said that she most strongly experienced the God of her beliefs.

Sometimes, she would ask me to pray with her.

I’m not sure what she thought of my “spirit of love and life” language, but she seemed to find comfort through the prayers.

Over time, she accepted the inevitability of her condition. A social worker and her nurse helped get her set up for home hospice care so that she could spend her last days without pain and with her children.

On the day Lillie was scheduled be discharged, the pastor and several members of her church visited her at the hospital. They convinced her that God was going to cure her cancer. God was going to save her life. They talked her into canceling the hospice care and took her home without pain control. Within only a few days though, her condition got much worse.

She suffered needlessly, until she reached out to her social worker, finally re-establishing home hospice care at the urging of her children, who did not want her to suffer such terrible pain.

Our spiritual topic this month is change and uncertainty. I share Lillie’s story with you because it illustrates how false certainty can be more harmful sometimes than living in uncertainty.

The truth is, there is very little certainty in life. Things are always changing. And that can be good. Creativity-creation itself only occur if there is change and uncertainty. And yet, change and uncertainty can still feel scary to us.

What sustains us, what do we hold onto, especially when change is even greater than the usual – times are even more uncertain? And let’s face it, we have been through a lot of change and uncertainty in, oh, the last decade at the church.

We tore up our building. The end results are this beautifully expanded sanctuary, a magnificent art gallery, a new kitchen and restrooms that make us proud. Still, that was a lot of change and disruption.

We have seen so much social and political upheaval.

We have a new majority in the House of Representatives – there’s no telling what they might do. We have witnessed the rise of explicit racism and other forms of bigotry. We have seen hate come out of the closet.

And of course, we went through a pandemic and sheltering at home, practicing virtual church for two years.

Then there was the snowpocalypse. Locusts and murder hornets. And then there is global climate change.

We are also in an interim transition period here at the church, after our former senior minister, now minister emerita had to retire.

That is a lot of change and a lot of uncertainty and I’m sure there are things I missed.

So, how do we sustain ourselves through such times?

Well, author and researcher Jonathan Fields coined the term “certainty anchors” for that which we can hold on to even during the most uncertain of times.

Building upon his work, as well that of others, here are the five “R-words” of how we might sustain ourselves during uncertain times.

The first R-word is RITUAL. Meditating, praying, a daily gratitude practice, the candle lighting we do here at the church, as well as our other rituals can help us through changing times. They provide a steadiness and help calm the anxieties that can arise from change.

Closely related to ritual – having REGULAR ROUTINES can help us feel anchored when the world seems to be changing all around us. Jogging each morning, coffee with the morning paper (or iPad), working out at the gym regularly, frequent nature hikes, saying to our spouse “I love you at the end of each day” – our regular routines can give us something to hold onto through changing times.

When Wayne and I first moved to Austin from Houston (or tried to) his initial job in Austin fell through. So, he had to go back to his prior job in Houston, and for over a year, we lived in separate cities. That was a big change!

One of the ways we made it through that challenging time was that we established regular routines that kept us connected and feeling anchored talking on the phone each evening, taking turns spending the weekend in each city and the like. The routines helped us maintain a sense of steadiness.

The next “R” word is REWARD. It can help sustain us through changing times when we reward ourselves and each other. What’s something you have done that was great? Tell yourself how great it was!

I love this poem by Derek Walcott:

 

 

Love After Love

The time will come when,
with elation you will greet yourself
arriving at your own door,
in your own mirror and each will smile
at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger
who was your self.

Give wine.
Give bread.
Give back your heart to itself,
to the stranger
who has loved you all your life,
who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters
from the bookshelf,
the photographs,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Reward yourself.

Likewise, ask yourself what has your spouse or partner done lately that you really appreciated. Tell them how great it was. How about your children? The rewards we give ourselves and others provide us all with a sense of stability and accomplishment even in the midst of great uncertainty.

Now, here is an “R-word” that I loved – REVERENT PURPOSE. Well, one word starts with an “R” anyway! Holding our values with deep respect, having a mission we embrace with great awe and veneration can help steady us as we travel the seas of change.

Now, we say our mission together every Sunday. Another ritual! It is good though to also remind ourselves of the values from which our mission arises. Our values are beautiful statements about who we are as a congregation. Let me repeat them for you now:

 

    • TRANSCENDENCE – To connect with wonder and awe of the unity of life

 

    • COMMUNITY – To connect with joy, sorrow, and service with those whose lives we touch

 

    • COMPASSION – To treat ourselves and others with love

 

    • COURAGE – To live lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty

 

    • TRANSFORMATION – To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world

 

 

My beloveds, those are values worth living.

Our values and mission together help keep us focused on what matters most even when the world gets turbulent – they provide us a with a vision for moving into the future together no matter what changes and surprises may come.

Well, our final certainty anchor is that most vital of “R” words – RELATIONSHIP. We hold on to one another through times of change.

We anchor and steady one another. Our loved ones can sometimes be the anchors we cannot always provide for ourselves, especially in the midst of storms – uncertainty hurricanes or ambiguity tornados. We do not have to weather these alone.

And in this religious community, we have a covenant – a set of solemn promises we make to one another about how we walk together in the ways of love.

These are our promises for how we channel a river of love that flows through our universe with one another and hold one another steady through the tides of change. Then, we go out beyond these church walls living our values and mission and bringing the change we hope to see in our world, rooted in love and justice. And that river of love keeps flowing through our universe.

And sometimes we forget that we can find ways to dive into it and let it carry us through the change that is life, even when that change may feel like chaos.

We can breathe, in the river of love. We can rest in its currents.

We can hold on to one another and float toward distant shores we are only beginning to imagine.

There is so much change right now, some welcomed, some not so much, some about which we may feel ambiguous. This will not change:

I am with you.
The river of love is still flowing.
It is the constant in which we may choose to swim in life.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

Reproductive Justice and our UU Faith

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
November 20, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our faith proclaims that reproductive justice is a vital component of and inextricably intertwined with our anti- racism and anti-oppression efforts to build the Beloved Community. Some of our fellow church participants will share their stories of how it (or the lack of it) influenced their lives, and the lives of their loved ones.

 


 

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.

Reading

Reproductive justice emphasizes that everything is connected, and therefore insists we refuse to isolate or pit important social issues against each other. Instead, reproductive justice advances these rights across the interdependent web of social justice issues. As the advocacy group Forward Together puts it in their “Strong Families” initiative, reproductive justice calls on us to work towards a world where every person and family has the rights, recognition, and resources to make decisions about their gender, their bodies, and their sexuality; where every person, family, and community has what they need to flourish.

– Rev Darcy Baxter

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

The Masks We Wear

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
October 30, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

At Halloween, we assume other identities by putting on costumes and masks. Metaphically though, we may sometimes wear masks throughout our lives. How do these masks protect us? How might they be holding us back? Might they even be a part of our personal and spiritual development sometimes?

 


 

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.

Meditation Reading

The word persona is the Greek term for “stage mask.” Masks and armor are perfect metaphors for how we protect ourselves from the discomfort of vulnerability. Masks make us feel safer even when they become suffocating. Armor makes us feel stronger even when we grow weary from dragging the extra weight around.

The irony is that when we’re standing across from someone who is hidden or shielded by masks and armor, we feel frustrated and disconnected. That’s the paradox here: Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.

– Brene Brown

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

What are we doing here?

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Rev. Erin Walter
Rev. Jonalu Johnstone
October 16, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Revs. Chris, Erin and Jonalu come together in person for the first time to explore how we do church at First UU of Austin and as Unitarian Universalists.

 


 

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.

Reading

from “The History, Philosophy and Impact of Interim Ministry”
by Margaret Keip

Let’s step back a moment for a broader picture of our faith endeavor. Consider religions as offering frameworks that render life coherent and assure us that we belong to the human family, to the earth, to All That Is, however we name it. A religion that fits us helps us know we are at home in the universe. Religion seeks a cosmic view; it’s a whole-picture enterprise.

Thus a religious community touches every aspect of our lives. It invites us to come together to grow more wholly, more fully, human; to become more truly who we are; to encounter the meaning of being alive. Religious leadership promotes this wholeness of being. Knowing that whole, holy, heal, and healthy are part of the same word family sheds warm light on our shared endeavors.

Historically, [Jewish and Christian] clergy were sometimes the only learned and literate people in their town. They preached and taught Scripture as the ultimate source of truth… They kept official records of births and deaths and presided over these vital events. It was both a lofty and solitary role.

And life continued to happen… [C]uriosity and yearning… is inherently human, and irrepressible. Questions sought answers and yielded more questions, and the meteoric expansion of knowledge rendered singular authority obsolete. The more there was to know, the less of it could be mastered by one individual. Knowledge and skills diversified. Specialization became essential. Human community grew encyclopedic. Echoes of archaic authority linger when “Reverend” is attached to our names, but the role of ordained clergy is to share and shepherd this diversity. Ministry cannot be an individual responsibility when understood as nurturing and caring for the spirit, in partnership with Creation.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

Building Belonging

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
September 18, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We know that a sense of belonging is a basic human need – vital to our well-being. As humans, we seek belonging in life. Perhaps though, we may find our greatest sense of belonging by creating more of it for everyone.


 

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

When it feels like lament
is the only sound and need,
the only way of being.
Here is that one warm room
where you know that you belong.

You know this waiting, open, ready
Here is that place you remember
where you are remembered
in this too cold world,
this place called now.

Softly come into the circle
where you know you belong.

– Rev. Dr. David Breeden

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

There was a headline in a newspaper several years ago, saying, “We’re entering a state where, for the first time in over 350 years, the world will be led by a non-Christian, non-white country.” And what it was saying is, we should be afraid. So the early debates around integrating schools – the white segregationists were, “We can’t have integrated schools, because black and white children might get to know each other and might marry each other and have babies.”

The white segregationists were right. You bring people together, they will actually learn to love each other. Some of them will marry and have children. And so it will, actually, change the fabric of society. When people worry that having gays in our community will change what marriage really means, actually, they’re right. When people worry that having a lot of Latinos in the United States will change the United States, they are right. We’re constantly making each other. And so, we can’t hold onto a notion that “This is what America is. So, Latinos, don’t affect us.” So part of it is that, our fear; that we are holding onto something, and the other is going to change it. The other is going to change it, but we’re going to change the other. And if we do it right, we’re going to create a bigger “we,” a different “we.”

– John A Powell

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingathering: Water Communion 2022

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Kelly Stokes
September 4, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This Sunday is our annual Water Communion service, a special day when we all come back together after the summer, bringing with us water from a place or time that is special to us. We will share with each other why the water we bring is meaningful, and then pour the water into a common bowl where it will mingle and blend, a symbolic act that reminds us of our shared faith coming from many different sources.


 

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 RETURN OF THE RIVERS
Richard Brautigan

All the rivers run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full;
unto the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again.
It is raining today
in the mountains.
It is a warm green rain
with love
in its pockets
for spring is here,
and does not dream
of death.
Birds happen music
like clocks ticking heaves
in a land
where children love spiders,
and let them sleep
in their hair.
A slow rain sizzles
on the river
like a pan
full of frying flowers,
and with each drop
of rain
the ocean
begins again.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

You are not a drop in the ocean,
You are the entire ocean in drops.

– Rumi

Sermon

Water Communion brings together three things I love: water, ritual, and this church community.! Now, I’m more accustomed to the classroom than the pulpit, so my first inclination is to say, “okay, who can raise their hands and tell me about the water cycle?”

I thought I understood the water cycle: the rivers flow into the sea, the water evaporates to become clouds, the clouds rain down and turn into rivers . . . wash, rinse, repeat. Right? If I thought about my place in the water cycle it was turning on my faucet and trying not to put pollutants down the drain.

And then along came …. respiratory droplets. I mean, sure, they were always there, but I didn’t think about them. And I know we’d rather not think too much about them right now, so let’s imagine we’re outside. It’s a sunny day, we sip some water, we sweat just a little. We breathe in peace, we breathe out love … and respiratory droplets . . and all those little droplets of water from our skin and our breath go up, up, up into the sky and gather together with their other little water droplet friends to become . . . . Clouds” Water from our bodies turns into clouds”

And not just from our bodies, right, but from dogs, and cats, and armadillos, and those foxes that were living on our church playground, and from live oaks and mountain laurels and from Town Lake and Shoal Creek and Barton Springs.

The water cycle doesn’t exist outside of ourselves. It moves through our physical bodies, connecting us to every other thing that holds water on our planet.

In our seventh UU principle we agree to affirm and promote “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Nowhere is this interdependence more tangible to me than in our connection to water, and through it, to everything else.

The water that moves through our bodies connects us to glaciers, wetlands, snowpeople, koalas, narwhals, pandas, orchids, ancient redwoods, coral reefs, and, whether I like it or not, fire ants and poison ivy and white supremacists. We are all connected by the water we carry.

Now, all these things carry water, but not like a plastic water pitcher, or even the big pot that Gie Gie carried on her head in our story, containers that you fill up and when you pour it out the water is the same. Instead, we act as a filter, taking what we need from the water, and leaving what we don’t, changing it in the process. Everything in nature does this too.! As the water passes through underground rock, it picks up minerals, which it takes to the river. If the river is polluted, it picks up chemicals, which it carries downstream.

There are other streams passing through us besides water, streams of information and ideas. We act as a filter for this stream too, taking in certain ideas, discarding some, releasing others back into the stream. The ideas we hold onto inform what we believe about ourselves and our world, they impact how we feel and how we speak and how we act. And in this flow of ideas we are just as interconnected as in the water cycle. That means that what we believe and what we share with others doesn’t only impact us, but enriches or pollutes everyone downstream.

So what makes up this filter? Where does the thought filter come from?! I think it might come from our experiences and the way we were taught to interpret those experiences, from the cultures we live in, and from our chosen values.

As a religious educator, I’d love to think that our values make up the biggest part of this mental filter, but unless we are purposefully reflective and conscious about our thinking, it’s really easy to be influenced by our Twitter stream, by old family patterns, by the people at work or school, even the ones we don’t particularly like or agree with, by what we see on TikTok, and, whether I like it or not, by white supremacy culture, which flows through and around all of us.

So how do we cultivate a values-influenced filter? How can we make a conscious choice to be a filter for good, taking in whatever polluted waters of thought and ideas are given to us, filtering them through our sense of justice, our belief in the power of community, and our faith in our ability to be resilient, to make change?

There are lots of ways, right? I’m going to focus on two today.

I believe the first step to tending our mental filter is self care and spiritual care. When we are tired, burned out, traumatized, feeling empty, depleted, alone, anxious, or purposeless it is so hard to tend our filters, or even to care about them, and all too easy to be influenced by whatever feels easiest, to return to default mode. This is normal, and if you’re feeling this way, you are not alone. Don’t be hard on yourself.

But, whether we like it or not, the default systems in our culture are systems of oppression. So, if you’re feeling up to it, tend your filter by taking care of yourself. Tend your spirit. Find your own black muddy river to walk by and find a song of your own to sing.

Another way I think we make sure our filter is serving us, allowing us to hold onto and release into the world thoughts and ideas in line with our values, is to be clear about what our values are.

!Here at First UU, we have a self-guided, video-based curriculum called Parents of Preschoolers that helps families begin the process of faith development at home. In the first session it asks parents and caregivers to identify their personal values and determine the most important values for their family.

I don’t think we should do this only when we’re raising children; it’s a valuable exercise for all of us. Which values are most important to you?

Now, I may not be able to ask you to raise your hands and give me your answers while I’m up here, but hey I’m still a teacher,! so I’m sending you home with a worksheet. I made some copies for you and left them on the table right outside the sanctuary. There’s also a link to the worksheet and the curriculum on the worship page on our website, if you’re interested.

We can’t know if we’re speaking and acting from our values if we don’t know what they are. And not only does this impact those downstream, but how we see ourselves. I might be feeling guilty for not doing a particular thing well, but then I realize that doing that thing well isn’t actually something I value, it’s just an expectation I’ve picked up from white supremacy culture. Identifying our values helps us live our most authentic lives.

So today we’re going to try another way to identify our values, by examining what’s important to us and looking for the values that support it.

Every year we bring our own sacred water, and share it with our church community. This year, we’re going to ask ourselves, What does my sacred water have to teach me about my own values?

    •  Maybe you have brought water from your beach vacation. Why is it sacred to you? Is it because when you’re at the beach you feel a connection to nature, perhaps a connection to the divine? Is it because you always meet up with your family at the beach, and that water represents the love you build and rebuild together every year?
    •  Maybe you brought water from your kitchen sink, representing your value of expressing gratitude for the gifts of every day life, or your value of staying aware of what you have that others don’t, like access to clean, drinkable water.
  • Maybe you brought water in the bottle you carry to the Capitol when you protest the harmful laws being passed in our state, representing your commitment to justice.

 

Next, please find someone nearby that you didn’t come with and briefly share the story of your water with them and, most importantly, the values this water represents. If you didn’t bring physical water with you, share your story anyway.

We know this may be difficult for people with social anxiety or trouble hearing, especially when people are wearing masks. Feel free to opt out or, if you do share, just do your best, trusting in the process of sharing.

If you’re watching on the livestream, we invite you to share in the comments.

We’re going to give you 6 minutes and will let you know when half the time is up so you can switch. So, where does your water come from and what value does that represent to you?

 


 

From the
PARENTS OF PRESCHOOLERS HANDOUT

What do we value?

Our church is made up of values we hold and rituals we practice. Consider the values listed below. Which ones most resonate with you? Are there values that don’t appear here? If so make a note of them.

 

  • Kindness
  • Gratitude
  • Curiosity
  • Humility
  • Joy
  • Creativity
  • Justice-making
  • Honesty
  • Loyalty
  • Openness
  • Fun
  • Perseverance
  • Compassion
  • Understanding
  • Balance
  • Authenticity
  • Wisdom
  • UU Identity
  • Conservation
  • Adventure
  • Courage

Write down the values that hold the most significance to you. Spend time noticing how they tend to show up in your daily life. When do you find yourself practicing or modeling them?

Links to resources on this topic:

Values Worksheet

Parents of Preschoolers Curriculum Password: YouGotThis2020

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

 

Question Box Sermon 2022

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
August 21, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Members of the church submit their questions about the church, our UU faith, spirituality and the like and Rev. Chris answers as many of them as time allows.

 


 

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

We are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but we notice each other’s beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.

– Annie Dillard

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.

I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.

I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.

I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.

I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

– Maya Angelou

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

A Welcoming Congregation

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
& four church members
August 7, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

LGBTQI Pride Week in Austin is happening in the next few days. Several church members and Rev. Chris will share what it has meant to us to become a part of an LGBTQI welcoming reigious 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

WE ANSWER THE CALL OF LOVE
By Julia Corbett-Hemeyer

In the face of hate,
We answer the call of love.

In the face of exclusion,
We answer the call of inclusion.

In the face of homophobia,
We answer the call of LGBTQ rights.

In the face of racism,
We answer of justice for all races.

In the face of xenophobia,
We answer the call of pluralism.

In the face of misogyny,
We answer the call of women’s rights.

In the face of demagoguery,
We answer the call of reason.

In the face of religious intolerance,
We answer the call of diversity.

In the face of narrow nationalism,
We answer the call of global community.

In the face of bigotry,
We answer the call of open-mindedness.

In the face of despair,
We answer the call of hope.

As Unitarian Universalists,
we answer the call of love – now more than ever.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

LET US MAKE THIS EARTH A HEAVEN
By Tess Baumberger

Let us make this earth a heaven, right here, right now.
Who knows what existences death will bring?
Let us create a heaven here on earth
where love and truth and justice reign.
Let us welcome all at our Pearly Gates, our Freedom Table,
amid singing and great rejoicing,
black, white, yellow, red, and all our lovely colors,
straight, gay, transgendered, bisexual, and all the ways
of loving each other’s bodies.
Blind, deaf, mute, healthy, sick, variously-abled,
Young, old, fat, thin, gentle, cranky, joyous, sorrowing.
Let no one feel excluded, let no one feel alone.
May the rich let loose their wealth to rain upon the poor.
May the poor share their riches with those too used to money.
May we come to venerate the Earth, our mother,
and tend her with wisdom and compassion.
May we make our earth an Eden, a paradise.
May no one wish to leave her.
May hate and warfare cease to clash in causes
too old and tired to name; religion, nationalism,
the false false god of gold, deep-rooted ethnic hatreds.
May these all disperse and wane, may we see each others’ true selves.
May we all dwell together in peace and joy and understanding.
Let us make a heaven here on earth, before it is too late.
Let us make this earth a heaven, for each others’ sake.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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

To What Ends

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 31, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The mission we say together every Sunday is our ultimate end (or purpose). We have other ends that help us move toward that mission though.

 


 

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

Say Yes. Whatever it is, say yes with your whole heart, and, simple as it sounds, that’s all the excuse life needs to grab you by the hands and start to dance.

– Brian Andreas

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

DREAMING
Chris Jimmerson

In the night, I dreamt of a world made better by our togetherness.

Of reaching toward never before imagined horizons, Made knowable and possible only by living in mutuality.

I saw distant lands made out like visions of paradise, Replenished and remade through a courage that embraced interdependence.

We dwelt in fields of green together, Fertile valleys nurtured by trust.

We built visions of love and beauty and justice, Nourished by partnership, cultivated through solidarity.

I dreamt of lush forests thriving with life,
Oceans teaming with vitality,
Mountains stretching toward majesty,

Our world made whole again.

These things we had done together.

These things we had brought to pass with each other.

These dream world imaginings seemed possible in the boundless creativity we only know through our unity.

I awoke, And still, the dream continues.

Our Values

    • Transcendence – To connect with wonder and awe of the unity of life
    • Community – To connect with joy, sorrow, and service with those whose lives we touch
    • Compassion – To treat ourselves and others with love
    • Courage – To live lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty
  • Transformation – To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world

 

Ends:

    • We live our Unitarian Universalist faith and values, teach them to our children, and act on them in the world
    • We support and challenge one another in worship, spiritual growth and lifelong learning to practice a rich spiritual life
    • We engage with one another to care for the Earth and the interdependent web
    • We care for one another in intergenerational community and connect in fun and fellowship
    • We embody the principles of Unitarian Universalism and invite people of goodwill to find a spiritual home with us
    • We partner with other organizations and faith communities to dismantle a culture of white supremacy and other systems of oppression, within ourselves, within our church community, and beyond our walls
    • We provide leadership to and collaborate with the greater Unitarian Universalist community to expand the reach of our movement
  • We are generous with time, talent, and treasure to realize our mission

 

Sermon

The year was 2017. The month – November. The leading cast of characters – our Board Trustees at the time. Their objective, should they decide to accept it, was to begin a process within the church to review our values, mission and ends. That’s how our story today begins.

Last week, I talked about how our values, mission and ends first came to be articulated back in 2010.

If you missed that service, our current values, mission, and ends are listed on the handouts we have placed around the sanctuary, within your digital order of service, and on a poster in the fellowship hall, as well as on our website and Facebook page.

One might suspect we want it to be easy for you to know about these things. To quickly review, values are the broadest, deepest aspect of our vision as a religious community.

Our values are the core of how we want to be in the world. Our mission then arises out of those values. The mission is our common purpose as a religious community – the overarching differences we are here to make.

The mission then gets further defined by that we call “ends”. It might help to think of ends as more detailed descriptions and goals for how we will live out our mission.

Ends embody what specific, measurable differences we hope to make. Well, seven years later after 2010, acting in accordance with commonly held best practices, the board engaged the church in a review of the values, mission and ends at they existed at that time. The board recruited volunteers to facilitate sessions with congregants, naming those sessions “Courage and Wonder: Visioning Our Future Together.”

Notice that Courage and Wonder” are directly drawn from among our values Statements In the sessions, congregants gathered into small groups of about four and were invited to share with each other based upon the following prompts: The first was,

    • Tell me a story about an experience at First UU:
    • a time particularly grounded in courage and wonder;
    • a time when you and others were living lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty, open to and curious about the unknown;
  • a time when you felt especially alive, involved, and engaged with this religious community.

Then, folks were asked to share as second time:

“As you think about courage and wonder shaping our future at First UU, imagine there are no obstacles, that all you hear is “yes, we can do that together!” What 3 wishes would you make for what courage and wonder help our congregation create in the future?”

That was before the pandemic.

I wonder how we might answer those inquiries now?

Finally, the groups were given art supplies and pictures taken from magazines. They were asked to imagine that 10 years later the wishes they had come up with earlier had come true. Based on that, the groups each created a magazine cover using the art supplies they had been given that addressed the question:

“How is First UU changing lives now that your wishes have come true?” The board then took the magazine covers and summaries of the answers to the two inquiries and re-examined the values, mission and ends.

They found that the five values listed in your handouts still held true for the congregation. However, they slightly changed the mission from what it had been:

“We gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives and do justice” to our current mission, which is on our wall and that we said together earlier. They did so to reflect a bolder commitment within the church to anti-racism, anti-oppression and multiculturalism that had come out during the sessions. The term “build the Beloved Community” captured that bolder commitment and gave a desired outcome to the mission. But the ends were where the real action happened.

The board created an entirely new set of ends to more fully express that new boldness and desired outcome. It’s those ends that I want to talk about more today, because they still inform all of our ministries and programs.

There are eight of them, so I’ll just touch briefly on each one for now.

Our first end is “We live our Unitarian Universalist faith and values, teach them to our children, and act on them in the world.”

We do this through our worship services, music, Religious Education (or RE), and our social justice activities, which include our children and youth. For instance, a group of us is attending a reproductive justice resource fair and rally this evening at 6:30 You can find out more at the social justice table in the fellowship hall after the service. In recent prior months, our terrific social justice chair, Carrie Holly-Hurt, led several of our folks in publicly decrying horrible legislation that harms trans people, as well as in working on the “UU the Vote” voter turn-out efforts. We’ve lived our faith and values by becoming an immigrant sanctuary church, a reproductive freedom congregation, an LGBTQ welcoming congregation, a green sanctuary church, and by adopting the UU 8th principle, which calls us to dismantle racism and oppression in ourselves and our institutions.

Whew, I’m out of breath.

That’s a lot, and it is only a few examples of how this church is living out that first end.

The second one is, “We support and challenge one another in worship, spiritual growth and lifelong learning to practice a rich spiritual life.”

Because of this end, we have learned that to grow spiritually, we must challenge ourselves. Sometimes we can’t be in a space that feels entirely comfortable and safe – we have to be in a brave space. For instance, our moment for beloved community can be challenging sometimes. Once again, we also fulfill this end through worship, music and RE.

Our “chalice circle” small group ministries, Wellspring spiritual reflection groups, our meditation group, book groups fellowship and fun activities and other ministries also contribute towards folks practicing a rich spiritual life.

AND, one of my favorite reflections on spiritual growth came from something one of your fellow congregants shared with me a while back. They said something like, “I experience the spiritual when I am out working with others to struggle for greater justice in our world.”

Third End – “We engage with one another to care for the Earth and the interdependent web.”

As I mentioned, we are a UU Association accredited green sanctuary church.

We have a strong green sanctuary team, led by the dynamic duo of Beki and Richard Halpern, who have spearheaded our participation in so many environmental and climate justice efforts I can’t possibly name them all now. They and their team have truly made this church a leader in such efforts in our area.

I encourage you to talk with them and get involved. We also teach our children about and involve them in caring for the interdependent web.

Our fourth end states, “We care for one another in intergenerational community and connect in fun and fellowship.”

Celeste Padilla and her merry band of folks with our fun and fellowship team have organized a number of great, intergenerational events, including the best online variety show of all time, during the pandemic! My spouse, Wayne and I were thrilled to provide some off the worst jokes ever for that show.

We have at least one intergenerational service each month. We have an active care team for folks who are facing life challenges. Our RE programs promote intergenerational interaction, including our awesome summer camp that we just held.

The fifth end is, “We embody the principles of Unitarian Universalism and invite people of goodwill to find a spiritual home with us.”

Our wonderful congregational administrator Shannon and a group of terrific volunteers provide several “Path to Membership” classes each year to orient potential new members. Our excellent transformation through connection and service team helps folks find ways to get involved, which also helps folks get to know other church members. Since we’ve returned to in person services, we’ve engaged in several ways to try and invite people of goodwill to find that spiritual home with us.

Here are a few examples: We’re upgrading our playground and classrooms to make them more inviting. We’ve changed the church website to more directly feature worship services and ways to get connected. We’ve placed signs in the building, inviting visitors to speak with me after the service. And, we recently ran a targeted promotion on Facebook, promoting our values, principles and mission. Last week, we ran a sponsorship on our local NPR radio station, KUT, to do the same and inviting folks to visit the church website, as well as the church itself!

End number 6 is, “We partner with other organizations and faith communities to dismantle a culture of white supremacy and other systems of oppression, within ourselves, within our church community, and beyond our walls.”

This one is so rich and complex that I cannot even come close to covering it all this morning. We’ll address it more in the weeks to come though. We work with a large number of other organizations to carry out this end.

And, one of the vital things we’ve learned from this end is that it’s often most effective for those of us from a majority white, majority privileged congregation to follow the lead of those other organizations – for instance anti-racism groups led by people of color. Many of our sermons and the moment for beloved community encourage us to dismantle systems of racism and other oppressions.

Each year, your board of trustees reads and discusses an anti-racism book, and we’ve recently formed a new book group within the church that will be studying such a book together.

Our RE programs contain anti- racism/anti-oppression subject matter and activities. And of course, again, many if not most of our social justice efforts address this end. Both your board president, Nesan and I have noted how similar this end is to the UU 8th principle we recently approved. This end, then, is in close alliance with the priorities of our larger UU faith.

Our 7th end is, “We provide leadership to and collaborate with the greater Unitarian Universalist community to expand the reach of our movement.”

We serve as the “hub” congregation in our area, often coordinating local social justice efforts, working with other churches to provide Our Whole Lives, age appropriate sexual education classes and the like. Many of our sermon videos have been picked up and used by other UU churches, as has our music, and we’ve developed an online following with UUs across the nation and even overseas on our livestream. Our ministers, staff and some church members have served in various national leadership positions within our faith. I continue to serve as a mentor for other ministers, and our minister emerita, Meg, now provides counseling for other ministers. Our Inside Amigos immigration justice program and our immigration sanctuary efforts have served as models throughout our faith.

Well, last but certainly not least, “We are generous with time, talent, and treasure to realize our mission.”

What more can I really say on this one except, you certainly do, thank you!”

All of our ministries from RE to Worship to music to social justice to fun and fellowship to our governance – every aspect of this church is only possible because of our generous, talented and good-looking volunteers.

During the pandemic, like most other churches, we saw a decline in membership. Yet, we did not see a corresponding decline in pledging because those of you here today, online or in person, rose to the challenge and kept us going. So thank you, thank you, thank you for your time, talent and treasure. Wow, I know that was a lot and fairly didactic by its very nature. I think it’s important for us to be aware though, of what our ends are; why they matter.

Please know that the handful of examples I’ve had time to give you today of what we are doing to make progress toward them is just a small sampling. We’re doing and will do even more. Progress toward our ends is a large part of the way in which we gauge how well we are living our mission and values. Our ends proclaim who we are through what we do.

They require that we join together and strive toward them as a community. They call us to work in solidarity with others. They move us toward mutuality, unity and celebration of our interdependence.

Our ends our how we say “yes” to our mission and the vision that radiates forth from our values. So let us say, “yes” so that life can take us by the hands and start the dance.

 


 

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 22 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