Guide to Meg’s Sermons

January 16, 2026 by tom Posted in Meg Barnhouse, Sermons, Uncategorized

Guide to Meg’s Sermons

2022 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
You’re going to Pray for me?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-24-24
Flower Ceremony and Farewell	Rev Meg Barnhouse	05-29-22
The Pumpkins Promise	Rev Meg Barnhouse	05-22-22
The fire of anger	Rev Meg Barnhouse	05-08-22
Curiosity and Respect	Rev Meg Barnhouse	05-01-22
Being Present with one another	Rev Meg Barnhouse	04-24-22
Coming to life again	Rev Meg Barnhouse	04-17-22
What is the Eighth Principle?	Rev Meg Barnhouse	04-03-22
Grasshoppers in Indra’s Glittering Net	Rev Meg Barnhouse	03-27-22
Water Ceremony 2022	Rev Meg Barnhouse	03-20-22
How to eat a car	Rev Meg Barnhouse	03-06-22
A Good Goodbye	Rev Meg Barnhouse	02-20-22
What if you were really loved	Rev Meg Barnhouse	02-13-22
Connected to All Creation	Rev Meg Barnhouse	02-06-22

2021 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
2021 Christmas Eve Service	Rev Meg Barnhouse	12-24-21
2021 Christmas Pageant	Rev Meg Barnhouse	12-19-21
The Perils of Perfectionism	Rev Meg Barnhouse	12-12-21
Dealing with difficult people (and trying not to be one)	Rev Meg Barnhouse	12-05-21
Right Concentration	Rev Meg Barnhouse	11-28-21
Using Our Voices	Rev Meg Barnhouse	11-14-21
Be Present in your Life	Rev Meg Barnhouse	11-07-21
All Souls and All Saints	Rev Meg Barnhouse	10-31-21
The Healing Power of Truth	Rev Meg Barnhouse	10-24-21
Great Big Celebration Sunday	Rev Meg Barnhouse	10-10-21
The Third Principle	Rev Meg Barnhouse	10-03-21
So Much Wasted Effort	Rev Meg Barnhouse	09-26-21
Resilience	Rev Meg Barnhouse & Rev Chris Jimmerson	09-19-21
Down to the River to Pray	Rev Meg Barnhouse	09-12-21
Right Livelihood	Rev Meg Barnhouse	09-05-21
The Inherent Worth and Dignity of every Person	Rev Meg Barnhouse	08-29-21
One coming out story	Rev Meg Barnhouse	08-15-21
In the stream of your life	Rev Meg Barnhouse	06-27-21
What did you just say?	Rev Meg Barnhouse	06-13-21
Just a Reminder	Rev Meg Barnhouse	06-06-21
Flower Communion 2021	Rev Meg Barnhouse	05-30-21
Why should I believe that?	Rev Meg Barnhouse	05-23-21
Abandon Hope and Fear	Rev Meg Barnhouse	05-09-21
Blues Theology (Revisited)	Rev Meg Barnhouse	04-25-21
History – It’s complicated	Rev Meg Barnhouse	04-11-21
When Harold Hatcher gave up, He grew	Rev Meg Barnhouse	04-04-21
Third Lap in a Four Lap Race	Rev Meg Barnhouse	03-14-21
The Power of Our Words	Rev Meg Barnhouse	03-07-21
Need a Little Mercy Now	Rev Meg Barnhouse	02-28-21
To Corinth with Love	Rev Meg Barnhouse	02-14-21
Blessing the Animals 2021	Rev Meg Barnhouse	02-07-21
In praise of the dark	Rev Meg Barnhouse	01-24-21
Wish you were here	Rev Meg Barnhouse	01-10-21
2021 Burning Bowl	Rev Meg Barnhouse	01-03-21

2020 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
Guidance	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-27-20
2020 Christmas Pageant	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-20-20
What’s so Funny ’bout Peace, Love, and Understanding	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-06-20
Poetry as Meditation	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-29-20
Falling in love with what is	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-15-20
Science, Imagination, and Magic	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-08-20
All Souls	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-01-20
American Civil Religion	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-25-20
Lessons from the Garden	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-11-20
Have smaller fights	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-04-20
Forgiveness	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-27-20
Celebration Sunday	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-20-20
Be a stream and not a swamp	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-06-20
Chalice Circles: Deepening Connection	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-23-20
Radicals v Respectables	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-16-20
Using your Anger, Holding on to your Hope	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-09-20
Question Box Sermon	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-02-20
The History of American Policing	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-14-20
Useful Ignorance and Beginner’s Mind	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-07-20
Flower Communion	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-31-20
Living with Brain Trauma	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-17-20
All will be well – Really?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-10-20
Punk Theology	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-03-20
A Trip to the Underworld	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-12-20
Losing My Religion	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-05-20
Social Distance, not Spiritual Distance	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-22-20
Two Parables of the Beloved Community	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-01-20
Sugar: What is enough?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-16-20
Milk and Butter: Creativity within constraints	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-09-20
How not to break a horse	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-02-20
Salt	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-26-20
Heat & Transformation	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-12-20
The Burning Bowl	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-05-20

2019 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
When God was a baby	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-22-19
Perfect Miracles	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-15-19
What happens in families	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-24-19
How to comfort someone who is suffering	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-10-19
Jedidiah Morse and the Battle for Harvard	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-03-19
Room on the Broom	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-27-19
Protected on the Journey	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-13-19
The Concord Genius Cluster	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-06-19
This Apple	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-29-19
Celebration Sunday	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-22-19
How to Change Minds	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-08-19
Many Rivers to Cross	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-01-19
What does that pin on your backpack mean?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-18-19
Walking Toward the Deep End	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-11-19
In My Life	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-04-19
Out from Silence: Writing your Life	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-30-19
Being a blessing to the children	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-16-19
Beautiful ‘Flower Girls’	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-26-19
Playing ball on running water	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-19-19
Fiery and Fearless	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-12-19
How to grow a seed	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-21-19
The power of story	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-14-19
If I needed you	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-07-19
The Kindness Connection	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-24-19
Celtic Christianity	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-17-19
The Promise and the Practice	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-03-19
The Magic of Music	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-17-19
Blues Theology	Rev. Meg Barhouse	02-10-19
Animal Blessing	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-03-19

2018 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
Lessons and Carols	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-24-18
Spray it Gold and post it on Instagram	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-16-18
Live from Pflugerville	Rev Meg Barnhouse	12-02-18
Come, ye thankful people, come	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-18-18
Fall down7, Get up 8	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-11-18
A Little Mercy	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-04-18
Those who have gone before us	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-28-18
Safe Space/Brave Space	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-21-18
Love is the Spirit of this church, and Service is its law	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-07-18
What I Learned from Being a Writer	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-30-18
UU101, UU201, UU301	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-23-18
Faith Out Loud	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-16-18
Wade in the Water	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-09-18
You are magic	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	07-29-18
Let’s talk about depression	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	07-22-18
The Genderbread Person	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	07-08-18
A feeling for the holy	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	07-01-18
ÊUnitarians and Abolition	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-17-18
Question Box Sermon	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-10-18
Does it hurt to Bloom?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-03-18
Things I Learned From My Mother	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-13-18
Seeds	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-22-18
Broken Things	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-08-18
A “Foolish” Easter	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-01-18
Finding our balance	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-25-18
Faith for UUs	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-04-18
Be the Spark	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-25-18
Why do bad things happen?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-11-18
Love, like a carefully loaded ship…	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-04-18
Animal Blessing Service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-28-18
The Power in the #MeToo Movement	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-21-18
How to invite changes in your life	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-07-18

2017 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
Christmas Pageant	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-24-17
Jesus’ Grandmothers	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-17-17
Grace	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-10-17
My Actions are My Only True Belongings	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-03-17
Elijah	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-19-17
Checking out, Falling back, Overwhelmed	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-12-17
Those who have gone before	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-29-17
Doing Justice	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-22-17
Groundbreaking	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-15-17
Transformation through service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-08-17
The Birthday of the World	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-24-17
Gathering in Community	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-17-17
Truth, Crushed to Earth, Shall Rise Again	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-16-17
You have to be carefully taught	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-02-17
Adventures in Hymnody	Kiya Heartwood	03-26-17
Get it to the size of an Oreo	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-05-17
Dealing with difficult people	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-26-17
Right Effort	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-12-17
Animal Blessing Service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-29-17
Trust, The Decor Committee & Citizens United	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-15-17
Right Livelihood	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-08-17

2016 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
Christmas Day Service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-25-16
Christmas Pageant	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-18-16
Star of Truth	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-11-16
A clear mind and an open heart	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-04-16
Acceptance and encouragement	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-13-16
Right speech	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-06-16
Honoring the ancestors	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-30-16
Right intention and the 10-10-10 rule	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-23-16
The final form of love, which is forgiveness	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-09-16
Mom, He started it	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-25-16
Abandon Hope and Fear	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-18-16
Water communion service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-04-16
The deep end of the heart	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-28-16
What holds us together?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-14-16
What I learned on my summer vacation	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-07-16
Talking to the trees	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-05-16
What’s the difference: Venting vs Lamentation	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-22-16
Make New Mistakes	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-08-16
Prayer beads for UUs	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-01-16
What’s the difference: Trinitarian and Unitarian?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-17-16
Punk Theology	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-03-16
Pretty Yellow Flower Day	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-27-16
The man comes around	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-20-16
Bee Yard Etiquette	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-06-16
What’s the difference: Protestants and Catholics?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-21-16
So many songs about love	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-14-16
Respecting the Fire	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-07-16
Forgiveness	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-24-16
What the difference between Sunni & Shiite Islam?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-10-16
Burning Bowl	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-03-16

2015 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
The Christians and the Pagans	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-20-15
Christmas Pageant	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-13-15
An upside-down world: A Hymn of reversal	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-06-15
Family Life as a Spiritual Path	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-22-15
The ugly duckling	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-08-15
At the threshold	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-01-15
Dialogue with Conservatives	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-18-15
Listening to Drag	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-11-15
Oh, Delilah	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-04-15
Good Grief	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-27-15
All beginnings are difficult	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-13-15
Choose to enjoy your life	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-30-15
The first one to try	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-23-15
Which God don’t you believe in?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-16-15
Father Earth, Mother Sky	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-21-15
Juneteenth	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-14-15
The boy who drew cats	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-07-15
Goldilocks and Elijah	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-24-15
Choosing to Bless the World	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-03-15
The Impossible Task	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-26-15
How many plagues will it take?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-12-15
The Cellist of Sarajevo	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-05-15
Palm Sunday	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-29-15
Question Box Sermon	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-08-15
The Red Shoes	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-01-15
The Book of Love	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-15-15
Want what you have	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-08-15
Blessing and being blessed: Animal Blessing Service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-01-15

2014 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
Christmas History	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-21-14
Dirty Water	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-07-14
Gratitude	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-23-14
The Problem of Evil	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-16-14
Keep the home fires burning	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-09-14
The Ancestors’ Ways	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-02-14
Circle Round – Women’s Spirituality Tradition	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-26-14
Trust and Welcome	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-19-14
Now THIS is church	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-12-14
Forgiveness and Repentance	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-05-14
Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-28-14
Give them Hope, not Hell	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-21-14
Water Communion Service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-07-14
Playing ball on running water	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-31-14
Sacred Spaces	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-24-14
My faith is in science, but I try to keep an open mind	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	07-20-14
The death penalty, reluctant soldiers & Edward O. Wilson	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	07-13-14
Spiritual Growth	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-29-14
Honor Your Father	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-15-14
The Cherokee Removal	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-08-14
Rilke’s Swan	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-01-14
A Juicy slice of UU history – Michael Servetus	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-11-14
May the force be with you	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-04-14
Jesus’ Grandmothers	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-20-14
Depression	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-13-14
God wants you to be rich!	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-06-14
Balance/Equinox	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-23-14
Celtic Christianity/Redemption	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-16-14
The Second Commandment	Rev. Meg Barhnouse	03-09-14
Heard it through the grapevine	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-02-14
Failure is impossible	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-16-14
What we are worshiping, we are becoming	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-09-14
Animal Blessing Service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-02-14
The Magic of Music	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-19-14
Architecture and spirit	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-12-14
Burning Bowl	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-05-14

2013 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
A Sudden Flame, an Extraordinary Journey	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-22-13
Christmas Pageant	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-15-13
A UU Faith Story: John Murray	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-08-13
How did we get the bible?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-01-13
A Juicy Slice of UU History: The Iowa Sisterhood	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-17-13
Dismantling Racism	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-10-13
Creating Community	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-03-13
Mystery, Spookiness, Magic and Wonder	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-27-13
Walking between the raindrops	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-20-13
I’m a believer	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-13-13
Bedrock Values at the heart of humanism	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-29-13
Not so good at mindfullness	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-22-13
What if you can’t keep your promise	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-15-13
Water Communion	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-08-13
Margaret Sanger	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-25-13
Life of Pi	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-18-13
The Oversoul	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-11-13
Defense against the dark arts	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-04-13
Like Slow-Growing Trees in a Ruined Place	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-30-13
Amazing Grace	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-16-13
The Rose	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-09-13
Tales of the tribe	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-02-13
The right thing to do	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-05-13
Fiery and Fearless: Olympia Brown	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-28-13
The Gaia Psalms	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-21-13
Lies, gossip and fighting words	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-14-13
Will you harbor me?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-07-13
Only life and death	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-31-13
Afri-kin	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-24-13
Good question	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-17-13
As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-03-13
Recovery from Fundamentalism	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-17-13
A Juicy Slice of UU History: Theodore Parker	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-10-13
God the huntress	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-03-13
Abandon Hope and Fear	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-27-13
The delicate art of forgiveness	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-13-13
Burning Bowl Service	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-06-13

2012 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
Blue Christmas	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-23-12
Christmas Pageant	Rev. Meg Barnhouse and Marisol Caballero	12-16-12
Rekindled	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-09-12
Sweet Honey from old failures	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-02-12
Thank you, I’m going downhill	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-18-12
Equilibrium with Elegance: Jazz and UU Theology	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-11-12
Kicking the Statue of Shiva	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-21-12
A Safe Place	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-14-12
Land of Hope and Dreams	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-07-12
American Civil Religion	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-23-12
A Relationship of Promises	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-16-12
ÊSetting Sail	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-09-12
Water Ceremony and Ingathering	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-02-12
Bee Yard Etiquette	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-17-12
The Real Ten Commandments	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-10-12
Gold in the Shadow	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	06-03-12
ÊWhat I learned from my mother	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-13-12
Gaia Psalms	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-22-12
Grasshoppers in the Glittering Net	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-15-12
Quartet for the end of time	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-08-12
How many UUs does it take to change a lightbulb?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	04-01-12
What is enough?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-18-12
When to take the leap	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	03-04-12
She stirs up the world	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-19-12
The man who ate a car	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-12-12
Everybody’s got a Hungry Heart	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	02-05-12
Afri-Kin	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-29-12
Installation Service of Rev. Meg Barnhouse	Rev. Peter Morales	01-15-12
A Stone of Hope	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-15-12
The Democratic Process	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-08-12
Burning Bowl	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	01-01-12

2011 Sermons

Sermon Topic	Author	Date
Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-24-11
How to disagree passionately and peacefully	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-18-11
Wisdom Tree	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-11-11
A Juicy Slice of Unitarian History	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	12-04-11
The devil and Martha Stewart	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-20-11
Digging a good, deep well	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-13-11
There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	11-06-11
Honoring the Ancestors	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-30-11
Be a stream, not a swamp	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-16-11
We are gay and straight together	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-09-11
Repentance, Forgiveness, Reconciliation	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	10-02-11
All the gossip from Concord	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-18-11
Where are the strong? Who are the trusted?	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-11-11
Water Communion	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	09-04-11
A Spiritual Stretch	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-28-11
Keeping an Eye on the Demolition Twins	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	08-21-11
Liberty, Healing, Good News	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-22-11
Where I come from is like this	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-15-11
Rapture in America	Rev. Meg Barnhouse	05-04-08

You’re going to Pray for me?

November 26, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse, Minister Emerita
and Rev. Michelle LaGrave
November 24, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Some thoughts on prayer from a person who used to be really good at praying, but now has many theories and thoughts about it. Lots of people are praying for me since I am sick, and I don’t know how to feel about it.

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

“Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark.” That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.

– Rebecca Solnit

Affirming Our Mission

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

Sermon

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.

Kyia and I are so thrilled to be here. It’s wonderful to see you all again. We live in Bryan College Station now. Rev Kyia is the Minister of the Brazos Valley UU church and it’s growing. It’s got about a hundred members and 33 children. And we have a lot of ex-mormons, hence all the children. It’s wonderful. That’s wonderful.

And so we used to go swimming before I got a little bit sicker. We used to go swimming at the adult rec center there, and I’m in the pool. And there are all these older ladies in there. So it’s a bunch of us older ladies in there. And it’s kind of echo-y in there, but everybody shouts. So you can hear each other. And they were talking loudly about all the different kinds of cancer they’d had. And they looked at me, and they said, “Do you have cancer?”

And I said, “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

They said, “Oh, what kind?”

And I just said, “Terminal.”

And they went, “Oh.”

I’m like, “Yeah.”

And this lady said, “I had a miracle healing.”

And I said, “You did? Tell me about it.”

And she said, “Well, I had cancer inside my belly, and the doctor said he might find it everywhere else, he didn’t know. And then when he went in to look, he just found a couple little places and he took them out and now I don’t have cancer anymore, so that’s a miracle.”

And I was like, hmm…

She said, “Can I pray for you?”

And I said, “Okay.”

So I had managed to get out of the pool so I’m sitting in my wheelchair and she comes over and she puts her hand on me, I think just on my arm, not on my head or my shoulder, which would be very irritating. So she prayed that I would have a miracle. And that’s nice, that’s nice. Yeah.

I have this neighbor who comes over, she’s a wonderful cook and she’s like a very slender yoga teacher looking person. And she uses essential oils and things like that. And she cooks for people, she’s a home chef. And so she always brings over some flowers from her yard which is gorgeous and some soup or whatever and it’s really good. And pretty far, well at the first part of our friendship, she asked if she could pray for me. Because she says to me with very intense eyes, “Jesus is real Meg. Jesus is real.”

And I’m like, “Okay, that’s it. That’s your argument, so okay. (audience laughing)

I said, “You know what? You know the parable of the sower where he’s throwing seeds to try to grow them on the ground and some ground is hard packed and the seeds don’t come up and some ground is covered with brambles and the seeds can’t come up and some ground is fertile ground and the seeds can come up.” I said, “My heart when it comes to Christianity is hard packed.” (audience laughing) Hard packed. I said, “People have been over it, and over it, and over it, and over it, and over it, and over it.” I said, “I just can’t even hear it anymore, basically.”

And then after a couple more visits, she has this neighbor that has huge Trump flags in the yard. And she said, “Oh, that’s a text from my neighbor.” And she put the phone down.

I said, “Oh, your Trump neighbor?” ‘Cause I had made assumptions, Because she was a, you know, sweet, kind of hippie-ish, cooking oils person.

She said, “I’m going to vote for Trump.”

And I was just like, I felt like I was going to throw up. And so I didn’t say anything to her about it.

And then I texted her and said, “I promise not to argue with you. If you can come over and just give me your reasoning. I promise just to sit and listen because I just want to hear why somebody I respect that I think is nice and kind is going to vote for that man.”

And so she agreed to do that and we had that talk and whatever. And so it turns out she is just a willingly under informed voter. Willingly under informed. She doesn’t watch the news. She watches YouTube news, and she just didn’t want to know about anything but pro-life. She didn’t want to know.

And so I’m just not sure this friendship is going to survive. But I hear people say, you know, you should be friends with people who just views differ from yours. I just don’t know. Kyia doesn’t want her in the house, which I think is reasonable.

She kept telling me to be open to miracles And then this Rebecca Solnit quote That Michelle, Reverend Michelle, read in the morning in the first part of the service was, she said open the door to the unknown, to darkness, and I feel guilty in myself because I think maybe she means keep the door open for miracles, and people really want me to believe in miracles. They really want it. And they keep saying, “You’re going to get better.”

And I’m just like, “What?”

It’s hard on the doctors when I do that because they’re so hopeful and they just don’t know what to do.

But I don’t think people know how painful it is to leave the door open for miracles, to think that there’s a miracle somehow just hanging over your head that could come down some time and make you well. I find it much more deepening to leave the door open and explore acceptance and living every day with as much love as I can live.

There’s a woman at our church, who used to be a nun for 14 years. She’s got a very peaceful aspect. She says she prays for me, which is okay, I love her. And I asked her the other day how she prays for me, what she means when she says she prays for me.

And she just said said, “I just,” she went like this with her hands, “I just lift you up and Kyia. I pray for you and Kyia at the same time because you’re one. I lift you up and just ask that you be surrounded with strength and courage and love.”

And I’m like, “Thank you. ’cause she’s not like, self-aggrandizing. Like, I am gonna heal you and pray for you.

I had a bad experience when I was younger, in seminary. I think I’ve told you all this story before, where my mother was very sick with cancer. She had, she was about three months from dying. and the minister from a church in Philadelphia came out and we had a prayer circle, they had a prayer circle for her with all the people that were there.

And this minister said, “If you don’t have the faith that she could be healed right now, you could ruin our prayer.”

And I, being in the middle year of seminary, where you lose your faith completely. Everybody does it. I gritted my teeth and I got up and left. I’m still mad about it. ‘Cause of course it didn’t work. It didn’t work.

Seems like there are a lot of rules like that about praying. I mean, I was a really good prayer when I was a kid. I remember one time when I was little, I was in bed, put to bed at my aunt, Mabel’s house, and there were a bunch of, you know, cousins and old adults sitting in the room, in the living room. And I had prayed and prayed and prayed for what seemed like a really long time. I just covered everybody. And I was so excited that I padded out to the living room in my nightgown, and I said, “I just prayed for an hour.”

And I was so disappointed because they were all like, “Uh-huh, okay, good, good, good, good, good, good bit.”

And I heard a lot about praying when I was growing up, Associate Reform Presbyterian, and then Presbyterian, I went to Intervarsity when I was in college, and they had rules, I mean, you had to have this much praise at the beginning of the prayer, and then you had to have adoration, and then you had to have an intercession where you prayed for other people, and then some more praise, and then you could ask for things for yourself, and then I can’t even remember all the rules.

But you had to have a pure heart, pure heart, and no doubts. And I just thought, I’m in big trouble. I don’t even know what a pure heart is. I don’t even know anybody who has one. A pure heart.

And so all those rules felt fake. And it felt like superstition. And it felt like they were praying to this God who was supposedly a God of love and who would sit up there in heaven and go, “I could heal you, but I’m not going to. Even though I love you and I am love, I’m not going to because you haven’t prayed properly. And I’m just going to wait here until you pray properly and then maybe I’ll heal you and maybe I won’t.”

And I just thought that God is not the one I want to believe in. You know, I don’t like that.

And I had a client one time who was also a Presbyterian, and she said, “I just feel like God is waiting for me to leave a loophole in my prayers. So like I pray for each of my children for each step along the way for them and I pray that you know I pray like that they would be safe going to the school bus and safe on the school bus and then safe going to class and the safe in class and then if I forget to pray for any part of their day I feel like God’s gonna use that as a loophole and hurt my child.”

I was like, Jesus, help this lady. She was really worshiping a mean, mean God. And I think a lot of people do.

I know that belief, that your belief does have a lot to do with what your body does. It can. I think if you, you know, there are certain, there are certain people in the medical field who just say, “This person got better, I don’t understand how.”

And but I don’t think it happens a lot. But I think, you know, if you believe hard enough, maybe, Maybe, I don’t know, it can help you, but that’s not available to me.

And I watched this show called Rituals Around the World, and I watched these beautiful people in a South American country, I think it was Guatemala, And they had paid a lot of money to go to this miracle lake, and they had a shaman there who was working with them. And just the hope in their eyes, and the belief in their eyes was striking. And I thought, you know, he had lots of blankets on, and then he would rattle the rattles and then he would he had a mouthful of rum that he would spit on the people and then they would go wash in the lake and I thought I really hope that the people who have that culture in their blood and bones can have enough belief so that that’ll work for them.

I am a white lady from the United States in my late 60s and I just can’t wash that off. And so I worried that, you know, you put yourself in certain situations when you’re watching rituals, and where I would just put myself in there, I’d be sitting there like this. So I don’t want to go there because I don’t want to ruin it for them. And I admired that. I yearned for that kind of hope in a ritual.

And I would love to believe in a world that’s full of magic, and I kind of do. I mean, I’ve had prayers work before. I’ve had making an altar for something work before. Not always work the way I thought it was going to work, and yet this whole praying for healing thing is confusing for me.

But I feel like It goes with my view of God, and so my view of God. So I think of God as a river of love running through the universe. And I think that this is my belief, you don’t have to believe this at all. But I feel like every act of lovingness, of loving kindness between humans, between humans and animals, between humans and plants and trees, water, rocks, between animals and each other, all Love is added to that river of love and that in that way we help create God by adding love to that river of love and so I figured that I would just say Yes to being prayed for even if it’s not by someone that I love already. And I’m gonna think of it as getting a little splash from the river of love. That those people are, they mean it in a loving way, most of them, I think.

If somebody like that minister came to pray for me and said everybody had to get out, they didn’t believe, I would say you need to get out because this is ridiculous. But most people don’t do that to me. So the ones who say they wanna pray for me, I’m okay.

I’m sorry to go off on this tangent, but so I was telling one of the people at our church who’s this woman who is trans and a philosophy major so she’s like prodigious in her thinking and I said what would you do somebody said they were going to pray for you.

And she said, I would say, that’s fine. I just want to lead the prayer.

And I said, “how would you lead it? And she would say, “I’d grasp their hands and I’d go, hail Satan.” I wasn’t going to tell you about that, but now I have. I’m not going to do that to anybody.

And so this song that I wrote All Will Be Well. That is my number one hit across the UU world. I wrote it 25 years ago, a long time ago, and I’ve had people write to me about it, like how it’s helped them, or their questions about it, or things like that, which means a lot to me.

And so, excuse me, I say at the end, “love never ends.” And I see people who are listening kind of go, “Really, ’cause I’ve had love end.”

And what I’m saying, I think, I mean, Kyia will say this is true, and I’m sure Brent too, whoever of y’all writes songs. Sometimes you write a song and you just don’t know what it’s about until years later.

And so I figured out The more I thought about it, that the song was about the river of love, and how love never ends because the river is always going to be there, because people are always going to be loving each other, loving their animal companions, loving their friends, and the animals are going to be loving each other. You can just go on TikTok and see lots of animal friends. Not that I go on TikTok.

And so I’ve been having this argument with St. Julian of Norwich for a long time and love for you to sing with me. I just lay out to her all the things that are wrong in the world and she says “All will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.”

So let’s sing it now.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Closing Reading

To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender…

– Rebecca Solnit

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

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

Flower Communion and Farewell

May 30, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 29, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In this intergenerational service we celebrate the traditional Unitarian ceremony of flower communion. We remember its origins as a vivid resistance to Nazi oppression. We bid farewell to Rev. Meg Barnhouse as she retires.

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

To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.

-Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

– Chris Jimmerson

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

The Pumpkins Promise

May 22, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 22, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Making commitments is complicated. Sometimes they are easy and sometimes they are hard to keep. How do we build our self-esteem by doing what we say we are going to do?

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

Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. Whatever form we are, able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing; a lifelong sharing of love with others.

– Mother Teresa

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

Stand by this space, work for it and sacrifice for it. There is nothing in all the world that is so important as being loyal to this space which has placed before it the loftiest ideals, which has comforted us in our sorrows, strengthened us for noble duty and made the world beautiful.

Do not demand immediate results but rejoyce that we are worthy to be entrusted with this great message. If you are strong enough to work for a great true principle without counting the cost go on finding ever new applications of those truths and new enjoyment of their contemplation always trusting in the one God which ever lives in us.

– Lydia Brown

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

The Fire of Anger

May 8, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 8, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

How do you handle your rage? How do you help others with theirs? How do you deal with anger when it is at someone else, or when it is at the supreme court?

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

O Spinner, Weaver, of our lives,
Your loom is love.
May we who are gathered here
be empowered by that love
to weave new patterns of Truth
and Justice into a web of life that is strong,
beautiful, and everlasting.

-The Rev. Barbara Wells

Affirming Our Mission

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

SIDE WITH LOVE STATEMENT ABOUT REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE.

Our Unitarian Universalist faith affirms that all of our bodies are sacred and that we are each endowed with the twin gifts of agency and conscience. Each of us should have the power to decide what does and doesn’t happen to our bodies at every moment of our lives because consent and bodily atonomy are holy and when disparities in resources or freedom make it different for certain groups of people to exercise atonomy over their own bodies our faith compels us to take liberatory action.

Meditation Reading

CIRCLE OF CARE
By Lisa Bovee-Kemper

In religious community, we share our joys and our triumphs, our sorrows and our broken places. In this circle of care, we make space for the complexity of life, the myriad experiences that bless and break our hearts. The truth of human experience dictates that on any given day, we each come to the table with hearts in different places. It is especially so on this day, invented to honor women who nurture.

In this circle of care, we honor the truth that mothering is not and never will be quantified in one single descriptor. Mothering can be elusive or infuriating, fulfilling or confusing, commonplace or triumphant. It exists in the every day experiences of each person. There is no human being that is not connected to or disconnected from a mother.

And so we honor the complexity of experience, writ large in flowered platitudes, but here in this space laid bare, honoring the truth in each of our hearts. There is room for all in this circle:

If you have carried a child or children, whether or not they came to be born, we see you.

If you have fervently wished to do so, and circumstances of fate made it impossible, we see you.

If you love children we cannot see, whether because of death or estrangement, we see you.

If you never wanted to be a mother, we see you.

If you are happy to mother other peopleÕs children, as an educator, an auntie, or a foster parent, we see you.

If your mother hurt you, physically or emotionally, we see you.

If you had no mother at all, we see you. If your mother is or was your best friend, we see you.

If your gender says you are not a mother, and yet you take on the role of nurturer, we see you.

If you wonder whether your mothering has been enough, we see you.

And if yours is a different truth altogether, we honor your unspoken story.

There is room for all in this circle. May it be so, today and always.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Curiosity and Respect

May 1, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 1, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our covenant of healthy relations says we should speak to each other directly, in an attitude of curiosity and respect. How do we do this best?

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy god mother to endow it with the most useful gifts, that gift would be curiosity.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

– T.H. White

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Being Present with one another

April 25, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 24, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our covenant of healthy relations calls us to “Welcome and serve by being present with one another through life’s transitions” What does it mean to be present with one another? How do we do that?

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

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

– Albert Schweitzer

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

Being fully present isn’t something that happens once and then you have achieved it; it’s being awake to the ebb and flow and movement and creation of life, being alive to the process of life itself.

– Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Coming to Life again

April 18, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 17, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Inanna, in the Babylonian faith story, goes to the underworld to visit her sister. At every level of the underworld, she is stripped of one more element of her rank and dignity. After three days in the underworld, she returns to the overworld. What does this story have to teach us about loss and resurrection?

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

i thank You God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

– e e cummings

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

AN EYE FOR MIRACLES
Diego Valeri

You who have an eye for miracles
Regard the bud now appearing
on the bare branch of the fragile young tree.
It’s a mere dot,
A nothing.
But already it’s a flower,
already a fruit,
already its own death and resurrection.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

What is the Eighth Principle

April 4, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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What is the Eighth Principle?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 3, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

What started the sense that we needed another principle? Why now? Why antiracism? Why do we choose to focus on this issue as opposed to all of the other oppressions? We will vote on it at our May meeting.

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

MY HELP IS IN THE MOUNTAIN
Nancy Wood

Earth cure me.
Earth receive my woe.
Rock strengthen me.
Rock receive my weakness.
Rain wash my sadness away.
Rain receive my doubt.
Sun make sweet my song.
Sun receive the anger from my heart.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

People say, “What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.

– Dorothy Day

Sermon

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SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Grasshoppers in Indra’s Glittering Net

March 27, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
March 27, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our seventh principal affirms that we are all part of the physical world in both a physical and a spiritual way. The health of our planet and the health of other animals and humans affect the health of our own body/ mind.

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

A NETWORK OF MUTUALITY
By Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted.
Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.
We must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center

Meditation Reading

A PRAYER OF SORROW

We have forgotten who we are.
We have alienated ourselves from the unfolding of the cosmos.
We have become estranged from the movements of the earth
We have turned our backs on the cycles of life.
We have sought only our own security
We have exploited simply for our own ends
We have distorted our knowledge.
We have abused our power.
Now the land is barren
And the waters are poisoned
And the air is polluted.
Now the forests are dying
And the creatures are disappearing
And the humans are despairing.
We ask forgiveness
We ask for the gift of remembering
We ask for the strength to change.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 22 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below 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.

SERMON INDEX

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

PODCASTS

Water Communion 2022

March 22, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
March 20, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

A year ago, during the freeze, many of us lost our water for many days on end. Others of us who had water filled up containers to give to our neighbors and friends. We bring water to the service and share a couple of sentences about about our experience of the freeze last year as well as what water means to us.

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
By Langston Hughes

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

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

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

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center

Meditation Reading

Water knows no boundary. Though we may draw it on a map, say this is where the water starts and where it ends, it is not true. Water knows the way into the Great Mystery. It is not afraid of going underground. Water is not afraid of dams or dry creeks, bridges or brick walls. It is patient. Water understands time. It will find a way.

– Thomas Lloyd Qualls, Painted Oxen

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

How to eat a car

March 6, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
March 6, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; Our sixth principal is broad and demanding. How in the world do we promote this, much less make this happen?

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

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

– Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Affirming Our Mission

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

Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center

Meditation Reading

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these — to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

– Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

A Good Goodbye

February 21, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
February 20, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

What makes a good goodbye? Our goodbye is going to be a long one. How can we talk about our gains and losses? How can we talk about the grief and the love that we share?

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

Earth mother, star mother,
You who are called by a thousand names,
May all remember
we are cells in your body
and dance together.
You are the grain
and the loaf
That sustains us each day.
And as you are patient
with our struggles to learn
So shall we be patient
with ourselves and each other.
We are radiant light
and sacred dark
-the balance-
You are the embrace the heartens
And the freedom beyond fear.
Within you we are born
we grow, live, and die-
You bring us around the circle
to rebirth,
Within us you dance
Forever

– Star Hawk

Affirming Our Mission

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

Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center

Meditation Reading

– Mary Oliver
A SUMMER DAY

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

What if you were really loved

February 13, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
February 13, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

A New Year’s resolution some years ago led me to the question: what if we were really loved. I have been pondering it since. So many people have that question underneath everything they do or say. Do you really love me? That is what they are asking.

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

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

– Lao Tzu

Affirming Our Mission

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

Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center

Meditation Reading

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this,
in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep you close your eyes.

– Pablo Neruda

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Connected to All Creation

February 6, 2022 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
February 6, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Animals help us understand and feel our connection to nature, that we are rooted in the being of all beings.

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

Our bodies, our thoughts, our minds, our spirits are affected by the whole earthen community, and affect this whole in return. This is both a mystical sensibility and a scientific fact. It is an awareness that makes us tingle with its responsibility, its beauty, its poetry. It makes our lives our most foundational form of activism. It means everything we do matters, and matters wondrously.

– Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Affirming Our Mission

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

Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center

Meditation Reading

It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them and every new dog who comes into my life gives me a piece of their heart. If I live long enough all the components of my heart will be dog and I will become as generous and loving as they are.

-Unknown

Sermon

To see the entire service which includes the virtual Parade of Animals click here.

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS