Soul Matters: Repair

November 18, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
November 17, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In times like these, what kind of soul work are we called to do? Can we, might we, repair our spirits?

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

LAY IT DOWN
by Joan Javier Duvall

Here, here is where you can lay it down,
lay down all that you have carried,
the weight of the world that has rounded your back,
leaving you aching and exhausted.
Here, here is where healing begins,
where burdens are set down and alongside one another’s,
their magnitude does not seem as great.
Here is where the door is thrown open
and the light can lift away the shadows
and what was hidden can now be seen.
Here, here is where you can rest,
Where nothing is expected,
but that you bring all of who you are
Into the presence of the holy
and of this loving community

Let us worship together

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.

It has been quite the week and a half, hasn’t it? I feel like I did at the beginning of the pandemic, like what we are facing in the coming months is just too big, too unknown for me to fully comprehend, to fully grasp what is or is not about to happen. And I am left with one gigantic question. How do I lead you, my people, when I don’t know where we’re going.

I am no Moses nor am I Miriam. I’ve received no divine message or instruction for how to proceed and yet I feel like we are about to enter into the wilderness for an unknown amount of time, though hopefully not 40 years. How does one, how do we prepare for such a journey? What do we pack? What do we bring with us? There are so many many questions right now.

How do any of us lead when we don’t know where we’re going? We might have some ideas. I certainly had some ideas at the beginning of the pandemic, many of which never actually happened. And so from that lesson, I need to remember, we don’t really know for sure where we’re going.

And here is the only answer that I can give right now. We prepare. We pack as best as we can and then we proceed mindfully from one moment in time, from one movement to the next, with spirits full to overflowing. When I was in seminary, preparing to finally answer my call to the ministry and at our last weekly chapel service, the professor served the graduating class a communion of milk and honey. I think most of us thought we were about to enter the promised land, the land of milk and honey, our journeys to ministry at that point complete. None of us knew that we would eventually be leading our various faith traditions through a pandemic, nor through times like this.

As it turned out, we were entering, we were actually entering the wilderness, the Promised Land, a murky vision of milk and honey still far off. But before that service, that one filled with milk and honey and promises we were taught an invaluable lesson about ministry.

Now I’m going to share it with you now. Imagine a tea cup. Imagine your body as a tea cup. It can be fine flowers and gilded edges. It can be plain white. It can be sturdy. It can be any manifestation of a teacup you would like. Imagine a teacup with a saucer underneath and a silver spoon in the saucer. The teacup is your body, is your container, and your job is not to just fill it but to fill it to overflowing. And as a minister, as a leader, as a person in these times, what we do is we serve others, we minister to others by using that little silver spoon and serving from our saucer not from our cup from our saucer so our job then becomes to fill our cups our bodies to overflowing continually again and again and again as we continue serving and serving and serving with our spoon as our saucer begins to empty we refill our cup to overflowing to overflowing to overflowing and we serve and we serve and we serve from the saucer. We need to enter these times with spirits filled to overflowing.

We all need this lesson right now. We are all leaders. We all do engage in ministry of one sort or another, and we are all called to build beloved community.

Our theme this month from the Soul Matters program is repair. So this is a big admission for a minister to make, but I’m in need of some soul work right now. How about all of you? So how do we do this? How do we repair our very spirits? How do we fill our cups? How do we prepare for another unknown journey. How do we do these things in these times?

There are more lessons from seminary. Somehow going back to the beginning is filling me with some answers, some sense of potentiality that feels helpful at the moment and during seminary one of the things that we studied was a practice of ritual which Kinsey began to speak to you about a little bit earlier this morning. Practicing ritual, engaging with ritual is an embodied experience. It is a physical experience. It is a participatory experience. It is filled with repetition upon repetition upon repetition. Whether that be words or melodies or actions, we move deeper and deeper and deeper into the sense of things, the meaning of things, the meaning of language, of poetry, of music over and over again. And we pay attention to the sensations in our bodies. We feel the vibrations in our hearts, in our chests. We feel the vibrations of those around us. We feel the vibrations of the music near us.

What we can do as individuals, as families, as a community, one of the things we can do is engage in ritual, to pay attention to those embodied experiences in a way that maybe we’re not always so mindful about and That is what we are and will continue to be doing during this service There is a lot of fear and anxiety out there right now As well as other emotions.

It is in the news. It’s all over social media. It is infecting our families, our communities, ourselves, causing conflict, division, polarization among friends, families, colleagues, congregations. People are revisiting questions they have been revisiting for some years now about how we maintain or build or create or repair relationships with people whose political views might be very different from our own, especially as we are entering in times, which are going to be extremely risky, if not actually life-threatening for many among us.

How do we do that? Yes. By filling our cups to overflowing, yes, from serving, for serving from the saucer, and also by considering generosity as a value. This is one that we newly embraced at our last General Assembly GA that we haven’t spoken about as such very much yet. Generosity of spirit. Generosity of serving from our saucers. Generosity to ourselves of filling our cups to overflowing in the first place so that we even have the ability to serve from our saucers.

In terms of our denomination, our association, the value that was chosen that we went with after many, many hours and years of listening to people was generosity. And there’s a little secret place in my heart The almost wishes, the word that we had gone with instead, was grace. So I’ll say that maybe we can think about generosity in terms of being generous and extending grace. We need to remember that what we are sensing and feeling from the world as a whole right now is not the fault of the person sitting next to me or my husband at home or my mom who’s sitting out in the pews with us right now, they should not be the targets of all those anxious feelings.

We need to really pay attention to our relationships and care for one another and realize that we all might be a little more grouchy than usual and extend grace when mistakes happen. We can be generous with grace.

But to tell you the truth, it’s kind of easy for me to be generous with grace with people that I know, with Micah and with my mom especially. There are some with whom it’s a little more challenging, with people who have very different views from my own, who may not see my life as a queer and disabled person, who is married to a trans person as worthy. So how do we do it in those circumstances?

I recently, at the end of October, went to a virtual ministers network conference. Our featured speaker was a Canadian, Dr Betty Vries. She is an expert in working with people, congregations and other organization who are experiencing conflict and polarization and how to work throught it. One of her favorite techniques is to use a mantra. The one that she favors is:

I am beautiful,
I am worthy,
I am a beloved child of God.

And then she turns that over to the other person. I am, she he they are, They are beautiful, they are worthy, they are a beloved child of God.

And when she’s about to enter a conflictual situation, in particular, she spends some time saying that mantra over and over and over and over and over again, until that space in her heart, in her body begins to shift even a little bit and she encourages she knows that that mantra I am beautiful I am worthy I am a beloved child of God is not going to work for everyone so she encourages people to create their own mantras they can be the Buddhist mantra of loving kindness, or it could be one that you make up yourself that helps you turn your spirit, repair your spirit, so that you can move into a place of greater generosity, into a place where you are able to extend grace.

These mantras, these repetitious mantras are one of the ways that we can fill our tea-cups. The why of filling our tea-cups, the theology of filling our tea-cups is one of generosity, of living out that spiritual value, of generosity of spirit, of generosity of grace in the world, in our communities, in our families, and in our relationships. But first, repair. Repair of ourselves. Repair of our own spirits. Repair is a way to prepare for what is coming in all of its unknowing.

So I’ll leave you with one final reminder that these spiritual practices are PRACTICES. None of us, even the most accomplished of clergy people is expert in them. We repeat them over and over and over again. PRACTICE them.

So I’m going to be vulnerable once again and share another story from seminary. This is a story that I had freely given to one of my best friends from seminary, Craig Nowak, who is also the my matron of honor at my wedding. Because I knew I wasn’t ready to share it with a congregation yet. So he’s been using the story for many years with me as the anonymous person in it. Today you’re gonna get to hear it and know that it’s me.

So when I was in seminary, seminary was hard. Hard in a very different way than things are hard right now. It is a 90 credit graduate degree program that takes at least three or more likely four years, it requires psychological evaluations, clinical experience, field experience, internships, a presentation of a portfolio of competencies, like a hundred or more pages long, you go before a fellowship committee and basically defend your preparation similar to doing a doctoral dissertation, similar to preparing for medical practice. Very different because it’s religious in some ways, but also some strong similarities.

So I was in my second year of seminary, which was in Boston, and I was serving as an interim director of religious education at one of the oldest congregations in the country. There’s a little bit of an argument about that, but we won’t get into that for the moment. Based on whether the congregation was formed in England or after arrival. So if you count England, it’s the oldest congregation in Boston. And I was serving as the Interim Director of Religious Education. Their first paid religious professional. There was a lot of work to be done. And I was also full-time in seminary. And I was also doing my hospital clinical experience in Connecticut. So I was literally traveling every three and a half days from Connecticut to Massachusetts and Massachusetts to Connecticut. I never knew where my shoes were. It was stressful.

And then this day, the Saturday came when we were having a workshop for the religious education folks to work through how they wanted their program to function and whose roles and responsibilities would be whose. And I was supposed to be bringing all the refreshments and the grocery store was crowded and busy and traffic was horrible and I was stressed to the max.

So I decided I needed to engage in one of my favorite spiritual practices of that time period in my life, which was singing meditation, which I did frequently in the car because nobody else could hear me. And I chose many different songs from our hymnals, songs that I had learned as a child. They varied all the time. I did it a lot in those two and a half hour rides from Connecticut to Massachusetts. But this day I decided to sing “Breathe in, Breathe Out.” Not the jaunty upbeat version that Brent has us do, the really slow meditative one and I was singing it and singing it and singing it over and over again it had probably been at least 20 minutes.

I had been singing it and I had started to be feel it settling into my soul into my spirit and all of a sudden this car cut me off and I yelled out a horrible swear And at first my reaction was, “Wow, I was just saying I breathe in peace, I breathe out love, and here I am swearing at this guy.” And then I started laughing hysterically because it was so ridiculous that that’s what I was saying and then that’s what I did in the disconnect. So in the end, so yes, it’s spiritual practice.

That’s where I’m going with this. We have to keep practicing over and over and over again. And yet, even though it didn’t work in the way it was supposed to work, it did work. It lifted my spirits because I thought that it was so funny. So with that note on practice, let us keep on practicing together so that we can keep on keeping on.

Amen and blessed be.

Reading

LECTIO DIVINA
Jamila Batchelder and Molly Housh Gordon

The strength of water takes on many, many forms. Just as each of you has a unique and necessary strength that you bring to our community and to the work of love.

Take a moment now to drop down into the deep wellspring of your own spirit and bathe yourself in the strength that is the groundwater of your person.

Are you a roaring fall wearing rock away with sheer force of will.
Are you a tiny drop of water in a crevice, breaking it open slowly,
steadily?
Are you buoyant like a great salt lake, practiced at holding others aloft?
Are you tenacious, like the mountain stream, finding your way down and around every obstacle you face.
Are you still and calm, like the pond at daybreak, offering radiant peace by your shores?
Are you in touch with hidden depths pulling from a vast well?
Do you soothe like the steam rising from a cup of tea?
Do you dissolve away stubborn muck like water left in a pot to soak.
Do you soften and smooth the edges like a creeping fog?
Do you clear away distraction like a cleansing rain?
Do you roll with the ebb and flow like the ocean waves.

Settle your minds upon the strength, the power that is yours. Draw that strength up and into your heart. Dry up into your soul. As we gather together the many waters of this community. We need each of your power, each of your resilience, each of your love to make us whole.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

I know this rose will open,
I know my fear will burn away,
I know my soul will unfurl its wings,
I know this rose will open.

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

Onwards

November 12, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Jami Yandle and Rev. Michelle LaGrave
November 10, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This is the time to lean into our faith and one another. Sunday we will have some time to talk about our collective grief, anger, desperation, and just be with one another.

Chalice Lighting

We light this flame
To ignite the sacred power of justice.
We light this flame
So that it may be a beacon of hope
In moments of uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and the unknown.
We light this flame, and are emboldened by its blaze,
Knowing our strength as a prophetic and powerful people Is rooted in the diverse ways we answer the call to love.

Call to Worship

by Rev. Rebekah Savage

Welcome beloveds, welcome!
We come to spiritual community this morning with many hopes in our hearts:
The hope for inspiration, the hope for comfort, the hope for renewal.

In this time and space, may inspiration water our thirsty souls. In this time and space, may comfort blossom in the gardens of our hearts, and bring us sweet relief.

In this time and space, may renewal course through us,
as electric as a surge of energy,
as serene as a nourishing meal,
as contagious as joy,
and bring us vitality and rejuvenation.

May our time together honor all the hopes we hold within;
May our time together bless us with the gifts of inspiration, comfort and renewal.
Let us Worship together.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Words of Solice and Lament

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.
Chris Jimmerson
Good morning. I’m Reverend Chris Jimmerson co-lead settled minister here at the church and I am technically out on sabbatical. How’s that for bad timing?

I wanted to come in this morning after the events of this week and be with my people. I know that so many of us have been feeling things like despair, disbelief, anger, anxiety, fear, disgust. I’ve been feeling all of that and so much more.

Right now, I’m pretty squarely centered in the anger-defiant stage of my reaction. So, it says I’m supposed to offer words of solace and lament. I’m not sure if it’s the right time for that, or maybe it’s exactly the right time for that. I don’t know.

I can offer you a few things that have been helping me. The first is that I know those emotions I mentioned can can be something that we experience as painful. I think though that they are like when we feel physical pain, they’re telling us we need to pay attention to something, something that will bring us harm unless we make change. And so if we try to not pay attention to those emotions, try to move through them too quickly, we can sort of latch on to a kind of false hope that doesn’t bring change that won’t sustain us as we go forward. By moving through them, we learn what we have to do, where we need to go next, how we find a true hope in our world.

The other thing I just read from Dr. Brene Brown was that she said that while hope is the antidote to despair, hope is not actually an emotion. It is a cognitive behavioral aspect of our life. It is the way that we think and do and be in the world. So to find that hope again we have to move through these emotions.

Here’s what I know. I know we need this religious community of love and support more than ever before.

And I know that there are a lot of people who have joined us this morning and will continue to join us this morning because they want to be part of a theology of love, joy and justice up against an ideology of hate and division, we have to be there to welcome you. And so I welcome you all this morning whether you’re here in person or online.

And finally, I know that that theology centered in love, justice, and joy is needed now more out in our community, in our state, in our nation, in our world than ever and that we have to be there. We have to show up because our world needs us to live that mission more than ever where we show up to nourish souls, transform lives, we show up to do justice, we join with others in solidarity and we build the beloved community because it is the beloved community that will move us through this ideology of hate and division back to a place of joy, of justice, of love.

Those forces want us to feel that we have no power as long as we center ourselves in love and relationship we have all the power we need.

That is the way forward.

I love you.

Reading

HOW IS IT WITH YOUR SOUL?
by Ashley Horan
How is it with your soul? This is the question that John Wesley, Anglican priest and the founder of Methodism, was known to ask of participants in small reflection groups. I ask you because, for me, this has been a hard week. So, beloveds, how is it with your souls?

If your response to that question is anything like mine, I want to invite you to pause as you read this. Take a deep breath, say a prayer, sing a song, light your chalice, feel the force of gravity pulling us all toward the same center-whatever helps you feel more rooted and less alone.

Now do it again. And again, and again.

And, once you feel that rootedness and connection, hear this:

You are loved beyond belief. You are enough, you are precious, your work and your life matter, and you are not alone. You are part of a “we,” a great cloud of witnesses living and dead who have insisted that this beautiful, broken world of ours is a blessing worthy of both deep gratitude and fierce protection.

Our ancestors and our descendants are beckoning us, compelling us onward toward greater connection, greater compassion, greater commitment to one another and to the earth. Together, we are resilient and resourceful enough to say “yes” to that call, to make it our life’s work in a thousand different ways, knowing that we can do no other than bind ourselves more tightly together, and throw ourselves into the holy work of showing up, again and again, to be part of building that world of which we dream but which we have not yet seen.

Centering and Medition

Now let us take a few moments to center ourselves in silence with these words from Harold Babcock.

Let us be quiet without and within.
Let the stillness be in us.
Let the silence hold us.
May we find the deep places of the soul and begin to let go of the distractions
which plague us.
May we let go of irritation, calm the confusion which inhibits us,
let go of fear.
The quiet is within us,
The stillness is in us,
the silence will hold us.
There are deep places in the soul.
Here, may we find peace as we enter into the silence together.

Amen, and blessed be.

Sermon

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

Rev. Jami Yandle

Unbeknownst to me, Reverend Chris said everything I was going to say and then some, but we’ll move on with my plan anyway and see how the spirit moves.

So instead of me blabbing on up here, I want to take a few minutes and hear from you. Turn to your neighbor and answer this question. Where are you feeling the events of this last week in your body?

I have felt tension in my shoulders, I found out just now Reverend Michelle has felt it in their gut. Where have you felt it? Gut. Jaws. Heart. Head. All over. Left foot. Left foot. wrist.

The reason I had you do that exercise is because generally some, some you use, particularly some white you use, are super great at two things. One, intellectualizing their feelings and two, trying to find the first actionable thing they can do to distract themselves from feeling their feelings.

Also if you are new here and you like spiritual questions and don’t respond to hypocritical fire and brimstone faith, don’t worry, you’re in the right place too. So how quickly you were able to discern what is going on in your body and or you were able to answer the question, might be different based on the color of your skin and some other key factors like how much society has intentionally silenced and oppressed you. But I’m gonna back up and explain a few things so you have some context for where we’re going with all of this.

I spent this past week, no doubt, like Many of you, feeling a bit lost, gobsmacked, sad, despair, and mostly angry. The gamut of emotions ran throughout my body and the concern I have for so many vulnerable communities. I can feel that concern seeping into my bones. It’s settling, and I don’t like that feeling, and it feels like pain all over. That concern that has become pain is full of questions, not only about my own trans community, but for our black and brown beloveds, migration, education, bodily autonomy. My kids go to public school in Texas. Maybe you are worried about that too. Is it time to move? Can I afford homeschool? What is going to happen? So many questions I have swirling in my mind.

My partner Natalie, who is also UU and a person of color, tried to bite her tongue and not say, I told you so. She was so much more relaxed this week to an almost alarming degree.

From the beginning, she watched everything go down and said, “This is not possible yet. This election will not produce the results that reflect our UU values yet.” It isn’t possible because her body knows something mine does not. As a woman, and especially as a woman of color, she knows all too well how far the hate goes. Generations worth of PTSD does not course through my veins as it does hers, reminding her how far systematic oppression goes. Something I have read about quite a bit and experienced and witnessed some, but it will never be to the same degree.

So I had more hope than she did. And for the record, I don’t feel foolish for hoping and dreaming. I refuse to stop, because everyone from Martin Luther King, Jr., to Victor Frankl, to Sylvia, Rivera, to Harvey Milk, and so many more of my personal heroes carried that same message.

So if any of you among us have a spark of hope left for God’s sake protect it with all you’ve got So you can reignite the flame in your neighbor, but I kept wondering What was Natalie’s deal? Why was I a frantic stress ball and she was so calm Unwavering she remained the anchor of the household. Meanwhile, I, like so many of my white peers, turned to documentaries, memes, poems, a John Stuart segment even. Anything to fix this. I was desperate. That was how I spent part of my Tuesday and Wednesday. Natalie watched all this quietly and on Thursday Natalie said to me, Stop it Stop trying to fix this you cannot fix it with your white anxiety Until you feel it more than that and you just need to feel it right now all of it

She took my hand and said just sit in it with me Be here with me My hand on her heart, hers on mine, a tender moment between two humans, the weight not the same in my body as hers, but nevertheless pushed to a newer place I opened up for more capacity for my feelings, instead of trying to rationalize and mobilize, we sat there. She said to me, This, too, is how we will dismantle systematic oppression. When you are with me, truly seeing and understanding me, this is when you will start to riot in the streets. The only way out is through. So we sit here until you understand how bad it actually all is.

Then, With you next to me we will go through this together But it can’t be a fad this time. It cannot be safety pins or blue bracelets performing allyship Risking nothing It has to be long lasting and daily to the point you will do anything to make the suffering stop For as long as it takes

So right now, this is what we’re gonna do Collectively we are going to sit we are going to feel this The elders and the ancestors providing a shield for us and with us we will sing songs and We will go through the rest of the service but intentionally Here with one another Be reminded about the power of humanity and the connections between and around us recharge your battery before making the next long road trip.

There will be time to physically move and to take action. And when it is time, you will know that because your deep knowing well will tell you so. Right now though, just be. Soul, connecting with soul, moving onwards by sitting still.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL
By Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us

For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full
we are afraid of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty
we are afraid we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone
we are afraid love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak remembering
we were never meant to survive

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

2024 Celebration Sunday

October 29, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Rev. Michelle LaGrave
October 27, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Each year, we celebrate the differences we make in our world together, and the joy that comes from being a part of and supporting this religious community. Join us for an uplifting service followed by a joyful celebration of building the Beloved Community together.

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

Today we celebrate a dream awakening.
Today we worship with renewed hope in our hearts.
Today we act on an audacity of hopes and dreams for the future.
Today we begin the hard work for justice, equity and compassion in all human relations, for today is a day like no other and it is ours to shape with vision and action.
Let us worship together and celebrate a dream awakening.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

Once a traveler came across three bricklayers.

She asked each one of them, “What are you doing”?

The first answered gruffly, “I’m laying bricks,” and returned sullenly to his work.

The second replied, “I’m putting up a wall,” and continued with the task at hand, growing wearier and slower with each brick.

But the third aid enthusiastically and with pride, “I’m building a cathedral.” And not so long after, it came to be, and was more magnificent than anyone could have possibly imagined.

– Anonymous

Sermon

Chris’ Homily

Happy Celebration Sunday!

On this, the last Sunday of October, last year, I was preaching the last of two sermons of a full ministerial candidating week, and then everyone went off to vote on whether I would be called as the next settled minister (while I waited nervously at a coffee shop one block away).

So, I am celebrating that I’m not doing that again on this Sunday this year!

And a year later, we have much to celebrate!

Today, we celebrate you, and the commitments, the pledges you have made or will make to keep this church and its mission alive and going strong in our world.

Your pledges make so much possible.

We have built an ever-growing culture of caring at First Unitarian Universalist (or UU), launching our Caring Companions lay pastoral support ministry and are planning for even more organized ways of supporting one another in the months to come.

Your pledges make a thriving social action ministry at the church possible.

This church year, we have committed more time and resources to dedicated church-wide social justice events and worship services than ever before, on topics like reproductive justice, climate justice, democracy and voting and more.

We are also working to make sure we live our social justice values here first, by exploring how we can become ever more inclusive and welcoming, finding ways to offer accessibility across all areas of church life, and taking steps to dismantle vestiges of white supremacy culture in our own ways of doing things.

Fare the well, Roberts Rules of Order, we bless and release you. Now, we have an election coming up in a little over a week, and no matter what the result, this church will be called upon to do justice and build the Beloved Community more than ever.

Depending upon the result of the election, those in control of our state government during the upcoming legislative session will either feel empowered and unchecked by the next Presidential administration or, if it goes the other way, they will do their best to undermine and run as counter to it as possible.

So, either way, as the large UU Church nearest the state capital, we will be there to demand love and justice, our voices raised and on occasion, I suspect, our fists in solidarity with so many of our partners.

Let us celebrate today that because of your pledges, that strong and faithful voice for love and justice will be showing up and stirring up!

Your pledges are also making it possible for this church to playa larger and larger role in our greater UU faith movement.

We’ve become a virtual birthing center for mentoring and supporting new ministers. I’ve lost count of how many ministers have come out of this church and how many of our current folks are at various stages of becoming UU ministers.

In the months to come we will also again become an internship site.

Folks from throughout the church are serving in several leadership capacities within our larger faith, and we continue to explore partnerships with other local UU churches, TXUUJM, and our UU Southern Region.

More and more folks are visiting the church and joining as members. We’re growing, not just in numbers, but in our spiritual development and our presence in each others lives and in our world.

This too is happening because your commitment is providing that spiritual home so many are seeking.

Well, I could go on and on about the future and vision your pledges make possible – a future and vision that will no doubt be extremely appealing to potential co-lead ministers out there!

I will close with this though.

When this church called me around this time last year, I had no way of knowing that my own personal calling would be altered so drastically only a few months later, when I would be called to become first caregiver and then mourner for the love of my life.

Because of that, I have witnessed in a very personal way the very real difference this church and our UU faith makes in people’s lives.

In the last months, they saved mine.

So, I celebrate you today for creating a religious community that I could not be prouder to say I serve as a minister.

I celebrate you.

Thank you for being First UU.

Michelle’s Homily

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

I’d like to tell you a little story. It’s a story about three people named Aubrey, Sasha, and Kinsey. Sasha is your administrator, Aubrey is your kitchen manager, and Kinsey is your manager of religious education.

They came up with an idea. I imagine it was a little idea at first but then as they talked and planned it grew and grew and grew. There were requests for recycled materials to come into the church. Cardboard tubes and boxes and paper towel rolls. There were searches on Facebook Marketplace looking for reused and repurposed materials for their project. There was sorting through and culling out of large storage closets. There was requests of volunteers to donate time and materials. And the project, the idea, grew and grew. It was definitely a project, not an idea anymore.

And I inserted myself every so often and asked if they needed some more of this or something of that and mostly they said that they were good and I wasn’t quite sure how it was gonna turn out because last night was the big reveal of their project. Have you all figured out what I’m talking about yet? Haunted Howson Hall.

I know not all of you have seen it yet. And it’s mostly still there. Last night it was much darker and much spookier and had more candy and had some games that aren’t there right now. But even so, the next few days it will remain up and you can be able to go through it and explore it and experience it.

And this is the totally unbelievable part. How many of you have already seen it or experienced it? A number of you have. Would you believe all of it costs less than $200? They are amazing. I was bowled over when I walked in last night and experienced haunted housing. It was amazing and it was fun and there were little kids and there were older adults and we were all there together and there were costumes and fun to be had.

And it’s a story not just of abundance because everything this community needed to put on something as fun and amazing as haunted housing was already here. It’s also a story of transformation. That hall is just this little segment of our bigger picture as first UU community. Your staff, and some very dedicated volunteers, and even the students that go to high school here during the week helped out and transformed your hall for you for this amazing celebration Sunday.

So here is the part where I talk about being an interim and what that means. I haven’t really talked about it a whole bunch with you over the whole last year, but a key part of being an interim is intentionally coming in with an outsider’s perspective, being able to reflect back to you what it is that I see and that’s important in what I’m trying to say today on Celebration Sunday.

So you know that I’m leaving and I’ll be with you the rest of the year but I will be leaving. You know that my salary is already set I’m not invested personally in what happens with the Pledge Drive and the budget for the next several months. I’ll be going, but I am invested in the presence of this church as an amazing, thriving, vital UU community, and I want more of them all over the place, but especially in Austin, Texas.

So anyways, this Outsiders perspective is what I want to say about that is that this building that you’re doing, this building of the beloved community, it’s really all about you. It’s about you, it’s about your amazing staff. It’s about your amazing minister. It is about your amazing seminarians and newly ordained ministers, your community ministers, your musicians, your choir, your children, everybody. It’s all about you and what you are becoming.

So I kind of have this image in my head. I wish I had like two little poles right here with those red flashing lights, strobe lights that could go off, okay. So we’ve been hearing that y ‘all want some more theology, explicit theology. So theology, here we come. (audience laughing) There’s your warning sign. So, as an outsider, I am free to celebrate with you everything that you have become so far and everything you will someday become and everything you are right now.

Becoming is an ongoing theological and spiritual process. We are always becoming. We are always building on what has become before. We are always building on what is yet to come. This is process theology. I’m a process theologian in part, as is Chris. I’m also a pantheist. So I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about that, but it does go all the way back to William Ellery Channing and his preaching sermons about being a likeness to God in the 19th century theology-of-self culture and building ourselves up and always improving and becoming better. So there is some of that white stuff in there that we want to dismantle, but it’s also about God or the holy, whatever it is, the universe that you see that is bigger than any of us as individuals, is also in process, is also growing, is also changing. It’s a rejection of a static God or a static holy or static divine. So together with with whatever is greater than us, we are building. We are becoming.

I joked with Brent earlier about this old cartoon called Bob the Builder. Do any of you know it? It was popular when my nephew was a kid. And the opening song goes, I’m not going to sing it, but it’s about Bob the builder, can he build it? Yes, he can. We heard it from the choir. I sent him a YouTube video and told him that’s what we should sing today. Thankfully, he chose something else.

But the truth is that we are all Bob. I’m Bob, even as my outsider perspective, you’re Bob, you’re Bob, all of you are Bob, new people who just joined the church are Bob, the visitors who are here for the very first time are Bob, the people who’ve been here since the 1950s and helped founded this church are Bob. We are all Bob, members, friends, new folks, visitors. you have built, we are building, and you will continue to build it. All of us. So just like House and Hall has been transformed out of the abundance of resources that are already here, that are present, right here, right now, you are. We are together transforming this community both inside and outside of these physical walls. Right now you are at 85 percent of your goal after only two weeks. Let’s celebrate that.

We’re going to celebrate that today. And as careful as your staff has been with the resources that you entrust to them, Under $200, amazing experience right outside these doors, the truth is that our expenses have gone up by a lot, by a real lot. And I know that those sustaining pledges are easy to continue from year to year. So whether you haven’t pledged yet or you’re one of our amazing sustainers, remember to go in, and if you can, if you at all possibly can, increase those pledges so that we can keep up with those rising expenses. We are almost there. So let’s continue to pool those resources, let’s celebrate, let’s bring this pledge drive home. All the way, All the way, people keep telling me that you kind of usually stop at 85, 90, 95%. I’m challenging you to get to 100 % or more before the end of the drive. We have everything we already need right here in this room, out there in House and Hall, out there online. Our resources are here.

Let’s pull them together so that we can keep on doing amazing things because you are amazing and you are doing amazing things. Every dollar, every hour, given counts. Can we build it? Yes, we can.

Amen, and blessed be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

by Peter S. Raible

We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves by fires we did not light.

We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant We drink from wells we did not dig. M: We profit from persons we did not know

This is as it should be.

Together we are more than anyone person could be.

Together we can build across the generations.

Together we can renew our hope and faith in the life that is yet to unfold. C: Together we can heed the call to a ministry of care and justice.

We are ever bound in community.

May it always be so.

Amen and Blessed Be. Go in Peace

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

2024 Commitment Sunday

October 14, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Rev. Michelle LaGrave
October 13, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We join together with love, joy, and a sense of belonging to express our commitment to our mission. Join us on this special Sunday when we explore building the Beloved Community and all that we are and dream of becoming as a religious community. Together, we make our pledges for 2025 so that we may live that commitment into the future.

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

REACHING FOR THE SUN
by Rev. Angela Herrera

Don’t leave your broken heart at the door;
bring it to the altar of life.
Don’t leave your anger behind;
it has high standards
and the world needs your vision.
Bring them with you, and your joy
and your passion.

Bring your loving,
and your courage
and your conviction.
Bring your need for healing,
and your power to heal.
There is work to do
and you have all that you need to do it
right here in this room.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Centering

ALL THAT YOU NEED LIES WITHIN YOU
by the Rev. Angela Herrera

Consider this an invitation
to you.
Yes – you
with all your happiness
and your burdens,
your hopes and regrets.

An invitation if you feel good today,
and an invitation if you do not,
if you are aching –
and there are so many ways to ache.

Whoever you are, however you are,
wherever you are in your journey,
this is an invitation into peace.
Peace in your heart,
and peace in your heart,
and – with every breath
peace in your heart.

Maybe your heart is heavy
or hardened.
Maybe it’s troubled
and peace can take up residence
only in a small corner,
only on the edge,
with all that is going on in the world,
and in your life. Ni modo. It doesn’t matter.
All that you need
for a deep and comforting peace to grow
lies within you.
Once it is in your heart
let it spread into your life,
let it pour thru your life into the world
and once it is in the world,
let it shine upon all beings.

Sermon

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

MICHELLE’S HOMILY

I love this congregation. My favorite part of it is on Sunday morning when I walk in and I feel all of this energy and vitality as people are gathering and entering into the sanctuary and I can feel, I know, that this church is alive, that is doing things, that is going somewhere, that feeling is palpable. You know your mission, you recite it, you believe in it, you live it, you refer to it, you are so curious, you have this great immense love of learning, an ability to change and grow and transform both yourselves and your congregation.

You have resilience, so much resilience, which we can see even in the story of the last dozen years or so. When you went from a time a really painful conflict with the congregation voting to dismiss a minister to doing the work of an interim work that you really did. Then calling Reverend Meg Barnhouse, your minister emerita, doing the work of rebuilding healthy relationships, covenanting together as a congregation, surviving the pandemic together as a congregation, and then coming out of it ready to rebuild, ready to grow in spirit and in numbers. Not every congregation did that. Some are still faltering, some are still recovering. And yet we come in here, and most Sundays, we’re almost overcrowded.

There’s a retreat going on at UBARU this Sunday, so we’re a little lighter for people on retreat. But still, you’re all here, and I can feel your presence, your love of being here, your joy in being here, the ways in which you are comforted by being here.

You went through the news of Reverend Meg’s devastating illness. You supported her through her need for an early medical retirement. You are going through the interim process again. You are working, you worked through the decision to go to co-ministry, you called Reverend Chris, you learned the departure of your DRE, went through another healthy transition process, moving the fabulous Kinsey into managing the RE program, Religious Education program, and now you are going in to search again. And still, the energy is there. And sometimes the staff struggles to keep up with all of you. Often we struggle to keep up with all of you. We talk about this a lot. It’s the opposite problem a lot of congregations have. You are amazing. And that’s just the brief story of what you’ve done and what you’ve been through in recent years. You’ve also done so much more than that. And still, you come out ready to thrive, ready to grow, ready to do, to nourish souls, to transform lives, and to do justice. That is truly amazing. This is my job as an interim to reflect your story back to you.

I’ve been around the block a bit. I’ve served congregations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Nebraska, and Texas. And it is being here in Austin, in this city, in this congregation that gives me faith in the future of our liberal religious tradition as a whole. Faith that we can and we will not just survive, but thrive, post-pandemic. That other congregations can learn how to do what you are doing and have been doing. That in this new world that is all too quickly emerging with its immense needs, including the needs for spiritual nourishment and transformation and justice building that it can be done. You all have, you already have a very long history of supporting and integrating the LGBTQ + community and working to integrate and support the local BIPOC community. You’ve passed the eighth principle, which is about anti-racism for those of you who haven’t heard of it yet, who might be new. You’ve worked through a congregational process of supporting the UUA’s Article 2 bylaws change, and now, as you heard last week from Celeste Padilla, you have more to do. Yes, there is more to do, both internally and externally. Internally, there is more to be done in the process of dismantling a culture of privilege that is embedded in not just all of our congregations, but all of our nation’s institutions. More to be done to become truly radically welcoming to all people, including BIPOC folks, non-binary folks, and disabled folks, keeping in mind that some of us are the same people. So many of us have intersecting backgrounds identities and needs and you will do it You will do it. It’ll be challenging and I have faith that you will do it.

These are some of the reasons why I believe in this congregation. I hope that you do too And I hope you will show that you believe in this congregation too, by increasing your commitment to it in all the ways, by working to grow yourself spiritually, by working to transform the culture of this congregation, I should say continue to transform the culture of this transformation of this congregation, and by increasing your financial commitment to do all that we are here to do. One of the things that we ministers and staff have been hearing lately, and we do listen, is that you like to make the Church’s covenant more prominent in the life of the congregation. You’d like to see it more, hear about it more, read it more. So let us begin by doing that now.

Let us begin by making it even more clear how it is that we aspire to be together as we do the work of fulfilling the mission of this congregation. So will you rejoin me in recommitting to this congregation, to its mission, and to each other by reading or listening to the Covenant together now.

FIRST UU CHURCH OF AUSTIN COVENANT OF HEALTHY RELATIONS

As a religious community, we promise:

To Welcome and Serve by

Being intentionally hospitable to all people of good will
Celebrating all aspects of diversity
Treating other as we want to be treated
Being present with one another through life’s transitions
Encouraging the spiritual growth of people of all ages

To Nurture and Protect by

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

To Sustain and Build by

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

Thus do we covenant with one another.

So we are covenanted, so we are committed.

CHRIS’S HOMILY

Thus do we covenant. These promises we make. This is our great commitment to center ourselves in love and right relationship together.

Last Sunday, as Michelle mentioned, Celeste Padilla so eloquently reminded us that the commitment we make is not just to who we are now, but it is also to building the beloved community of our dreams and aspirations. I just lost my spouse Wayne a little over a month ago, and so, of course, as we have approached this commitment Sunday, I haven’t been able to help but think about the commitment he and I made to one another, and how we came to realize that that commitment was not just to who we are and the love we have at any moment, but also to acting for that love, doing the work to keep that love growing stronger and larger.

So I have to share with you all a story about that commitment we had to becoming together. So to start, you have to know that Wayne absolutely loved dogs. You’ll see why in a little bit. Now some of you have heard the first part of the story before. Wayne and I first got legally married in Vancouver, Canada. We got married in this beautiful house on the bay by this wonderful woman who happened to be babysitting a dog named Marley who she thought she had locked away for the time of doing our nuptials but Marley broke free and came in and that turned out to be a good thing because when we got to the point where we were to say our vows both Wayne and I got unexpectedly emotional and couldn’t really speak and Wayne was able to make before he got too sick to travel was to go back to Vancouver. And unbeknownst to me, while he was there, he fell in love with the work of a gay Ukrainian artist and bought this large piece of art that I didn’t know about. And in the weeks leading up to his death, he started to kind of sheepishly tell me about this because that was kind of against the rules of our relationship to buy a big piece we were gonna hang in our house without talking to each other about it. But he hoped I would love it as much as him and he had even picked out where he hoped I would frame it and hang it in the house.

Well a week after he died I found the cardboard tube that had the piece of art in it. So I took it to a frame shop near our house and I told the woman who was helping me, I probably can’t make it through this without breaking up because of the situation and as she unrolled it and I saw that it wasn’t the print I thought it would be but the actual piece of art, art and the actual canvas, I did totally lose it.

Well, there was a female couple in the shop with us who had a dog and the dog came running over and insisted that it love on me and I love on it and that once again rescued me so we were able to measure the piece of art and it was so large they had to ship it off to their central warehouse in order to get it framed.

Oh, and also, Wayne and I had been discussing that our oldest dog, Benjamin, turns nine years old on January one of next year, and so I should think about getting another puppy to help me through when I lose Benjamin, because that’s getting near the end of his lifespan, and it would really help our younger dog, Luisa, who has never lived without a canine companion. So I started looking into that, but it was a little too soon right now because I plan on doing travel through the end of the year.

And at the same time I was doing that, I kept trying to track the painting online and it kept saying, “We can’t wait to get started.” And a month later, I was starting to worry like, “Have they lost the painting?”

Well, yesterday was my day, the first one without Wayne, and so I was worried about how I was going to make it through that. And then partway through last week, I got an email from the woman that we bought Benjamin from saying, “You can be among the first, if you would like, to choose from the litter of puppies I’ll have in early November that we’ll be ready to adopt after the first of the year.

And then I got an email saying his ashes could be picked up. And so I got my younger brother to take me over, and we picked up the ashes and brought him home.

And then yesterday, the painting showed up. And so it kind of feels like Wayne Spirit made it back just in time for my birthday and gave me a large-framed art piece and a new puppy.

Now that’s a commitment to becoming together.

You know, people say that we Unitarian Universalists have no common theology because we have folks who range from non-theistic humanists to naturalists to Christian-oriented to folks who draw from one or more of the many world religions or philosophies, and I say they’re wrong. I say we do have a common theology because common to all of our various perspectives, we have that commitment to centering ourselves in love and right relationship. And because we have always been a living tradition, our promises and covenants we make among ourselves embrace who we are now and also include a commitment to who and what we are not yet.

We commit to all that we have been, all that we are and all that we aspire to become together, just like Wayne did with me.

Recently, I was telling Wayne’s best friend of over 40 years, Teresa, that at one point, after he had gone on hospice, we were talking, and he said to me, “I love Teresa more than anyone in the world except you, and sometimes I’m not so sure about that.”

Thanks, honey. I can tell you this. I love and am committed to this church, second only to Wayne of that I am sure. And I know, I know that so many of you love this church and are just as committed to it and your church needs you because we have been hit with almost a hundred thousand dollars in greater expenses for 2025 due to insurance and other cost increases and that means our expenses will be about thirty two hundred dollars per day even with a very cost conscious budget.

That is a big challenge. And I know, I know that this church will not only meet that challenge, but will also do so many great things in this coming year because we commit, we make promises, we make covenants about how we will grow together in the ways of love. You see, for us theologically, God is in those promises we make. And our divine promise emerges from within right relationship centered in love. And our pledges are a promise.

So my beloveds, pledge early. Pledge now. Pledge big. It makes you feel good all over. God is in the promises we make, now let us make those promises together.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

We come to religious community from many paths and with diverse needs:
If you have come here seeking comfort, may your pain be soothed
If you have come here looking for answers, may you find new questions
If you have come here seeking purpose, may your call be awakened
If you have come here hoping to build a new way, may the path open before you
May it be so, Amen, and Blessed Be

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Imagination

October 7, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the service by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Patrice (PK) Curtis and Rev. Michelle LaGrave
October 6, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Rev. Patrice Curtis is helping us prepare for this year’s ministerial search and the possibilities a new co-minister might bring. In their role as the UUA’s Transformational Interim Ministries Director they amplify belonging, diversity, equity, and inclusion within congregations and in querying unhealthy patterns that make Beloved Community difficult to realize. At their request Rev. Curtis’ homily is not included.

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

– Sobonfu Some

Community is the spirit, the guiding light of the tribe, whereby people come together in order to fulfill a specific purpose, to help others fulfill their purpose, and to take care of one another.

Come, let us worship together.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

WHAT YOU RISK TELLING YOUR STORY
by Laura Ann Hershey

Ms Hershey (August 11, 1962 – November 26, 2010) was a white poet, journalist, feminist, and a disability rights activist and consultant known to have parked her wheelchair in front of buses. Hershey was one of the leaders of a protest against the paternalistic attitudes and images of people with disabilities inherent in Jerry Lewis’s MDA Telethon. She had spinal muscular atrophy.

What you risk telling your story:
You will bore them.
Your voice will break, your ink spill and stain your coat.
No one will understand,
their eyes become fences.

You will park yourself forever on the outside, your differentness once
and for all revealed, dangerous.
The names you give to yourself will become epithets.
Your happiness will be called
bravery, denial.

Your sadness will justify their pity.
Your fear will magnify their fears.
Everything you say will prove something about their god,
or their economic system.

Your feelings, that change day-to-day, kaleidoscopic,
will freeze in place,
brand you forever,
justify anything they decide to do with you.

Those with power can afford to tell their story
or not.
Those without power risk everything to tell their story
and must.

Someone, somewhere will hear your story
and decide to fight,
to live and refuse compromise.
Someone else will tell her own story,
risking everything.

Sermon

At Rev. Curtis’ request the audio and text of the homily is not available.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

“We receive fragments of holiness, glimpses of eternity, brief moments of insight. Let us gather them up for the precious gifts that they are, and renewed by their grace, move boldly into the unknown.”

– Sarah York

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Invitation to Transform

September 18, 2024 by tom Posted in Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
September 15, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Building beloved community is, at its heart, about transformation. Reflecting upon cultural differences among the generations is one way we can think about welcoming pluralism into our lives and our communities.

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

Welcome to this place
where certainty transforms
to questions.

This place that takes what is
and imagines what can be.

Welcome to this space
where what was fixed begins to shift; where
rigidity embraces unfolding,
as we join in the dance
of trans-form-a-tion.

Welcome to this
moment of change,
where together, we
transfigure and transcend together.

– by the Rev. Dr. David Breeden

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

LOTS’ WIFE
by the Rev. Dr. Lynn Unger

Where will you go home?
These mountains cannot receive you,
and there is no cave or grave to be dug
for you in your old hills.

And still a current of air
keeps singing home … home
as if that meant something
you could go to, as if something
could finally stand still.

Turn then, and keep turning.
Faster, like a drill
through your old God’s promises,
like a potter’s wheel,
like a spindle, twisting

your tears into salt crystals,
into the face of this
wrecked land, into the distant,
perfect stars, which will not
take you up, but hold to you

like mirrors, flashing their
salty glare with each minute,
with each
magnificent
revolution.

Sermon

NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors that weren’t caught.

In our story this morning, Casey, a Gen-Zer or a Zoomer, listened and learned from Grandma, who was a silent generation person. They, that is Casey, learned some lessons about change over time, what to expect, and how best to cope with change. While we didn’t go into all the details in the children’s story this morning, we can imagine how rich and deep those conversations got between Casey and her grandmother.

This is often how we think about elders and wisdom. That wisdom is passed down from older generations to younger generations. And all that is true. It is so true and so important. We younger generations need to remember to ask questions, to ask for stories, to listen. Our elders need to remember to share their stories with us. And it’s not the only way that we learn wisdom. Wisdom can flow from any generation to any other. Sometimes older generations, like mine, can and do learn from younger generations.

There was a person named Audrey, not our Aubrey, I wanna be really clear about that. Nothing bad happened to our Aubrey. Audrey was a woman, a trans woman in Houston who I met right after she graduated from college when she was 21, right when she was beginning her process of transitioning. I only knew her for a year and a half or so before her life ended tragically, a consequence of the social and political climate in which trans and non-binary people currently live. She was a wonderful person. I loved her so much. She was just beginning her faith journey. She hoped to go to seminary and become a UU minister. She had been hired to be the General Assembly Young Adult Coordinator for GA 2023 so you may have heard of her from that context. She was amazing.

She restored my faith just at that cusp of churches emerging from the pandemic and trying to figure out what post-pandemic church was going to be like and what post-pandemic Unitarian Universalism was calling us to do. And she restored my faith in the future of our faith tradition. She had a wonderful way of invitational listening. She was a membership coordinator at the UU Church in Houston, Emerson, and she would sit people down in the comfy chairs, and I have this image that will stay with me forever, of her putting her head and her chin in her hand and just sitting and watching and listening and you could tell that she had her entire focus on the person that she was listening to and people opened up to her.

We learned so much about the church and what was going on in the church because everyone was telling Audrey. I also, Audrey was a Gen-Zer, a Zoomer, I also learned so much from Audrey about how social justice movements were being organized in college and by young adults in their 20s and how it was being done in such a better way than we had in the past, how it was so much more collaborative, how there was so much more shared leadership, and I have taken those lessons with me and carried them forward in my ministry.

She may have been only 21 or 22 and I her elder by 30 years but she had wisdom to share with me. All of this is really getting at the question of culture, especially the question of culture in churches.

So if you are new or visiting with us today, if this is not your church home or it’s not your church home yet, and maybe someday, you can also think about these things I’m saying about culture as working in your workplace or in your family or in the nonprofit organizations where you volunteer, all sorts of different settings. So this is for all of us, although I will focus on talking about church.

So, culture. Culture is a set of rules of behavior. That’s the simplest definition. A set of rules of behavior. Those rules of behavior might be unwritten. They might be written down somewhere. And there are a group of people that share those rules of behavior.

Culture can be regional, national, generational, queer, deaf. There are lots of different cultures and subcultures. They can go with one’s ethnic heritage. They can go with one’s orientation or gender identity. Lots and lots of different cultures, including within the United States.

Churches, like families and schools and other groups, also have culture. We have a set of rules of behavior about how things are done, when they are done, et cetera, how meetings happen, how bylaws are written, all sorts of different things. So recognizing that church has a culture, a set of rules of behavior that people are expected to follow. What we’re going to try to do this morning is reconcile that, those sets of church cultural expectations, with what we learned last week, especially from Brené Brown’s video that I shared, about how her research showed that that opposite of belonging is fitting in.

So how do we encourage people to feel like they belong, help them feel like they belong, help ourselves feel like we belong, and also have these cultural rules and expectations, many of which are unwritten, like who sits where and in which pew. Dangerous for visitors, right? ‘Cause they don’t know where to sit. No clue whose pew is whose. And sometimes, I don’t know if this happens in Texas, but I did serve churches that were hundreds and hundreds of years old when I was in New England. And I had people whose family sat in the same pews for the last couple hundred years, honest.

So if we are to build beloved community where more and more people can feel like they belong, we also need to take care that we are not expecting all the different kinds of people that we want to feel welcome here, that we want to feel like they belong here, or not even just new people, but the people who are already here wanting to feel more like they really do belong here ’cause both are true. And then we have these expectations about how to “fit in” to the church culture that is already here. How do we do that? How do we weigh those different ways, W-E-I-G-H, those different ways, W-A-Y-S. I didn’t intend that to come out that way. (laughing) Of being.

So there is a toxin that is present in this church, and in all of our churches, about how there is one right way to do things, one right way to do church, or one right way to have the holiday family dinner, or one right way to cook the ham, that’s the classic example from one of those apocryphal stories.

So I’m going to share some more lighthearted examples. Okay, one of the other things I learned from Audrey, Zoomer, remember, is that when texting on your phone, it is rude to reply to someone by saying “okay”. How many of you knew or thought that that was true? Very, very few. Much more polite is to say K or KK. OK is rude, according to the Zoomers.

I grew up with rules about how to use the phone. Never call during the dinner hour. Rules have changed over time as technology and social norms have changed, whether we call at the dinner hour or not, whether it’s more polite to call because someone has trouble either physically manipulating a phone to text or is older and never learned how to text, whatever the reason, some people in some situations it might be more polite, more kind, to call as long as it’s not at dinner. For others, it’s much more polite to text. It’s quite rude to call someone on the phone. That includes my generation. It interrupts your life less with a text. You don’t have to actually stop what you’re doing. You can actually answer without doing the phone screening thing.

For Zoomers, yes, you still have to text, But you don’t say “okay”.

So we take this all into context are we texting with a zoomer. Maybe we don’t say okay. Maybe they are kind to us and say “Oh, you old gen-Xer, You don’t know that you’re being rude, so I’ll ignore it”.

In any case, there’s no one right way to use the phone anymore. There used to be one right way when I was a kid, but no longer.

Another example, Brent and I, we both come from New England, not Texas. We are both gen-Xers. We get each other. We have a different sense of humor. Light-hearted teasing means we actually love you, so if Brent makes fun of me in a light-hearted, not mean bullying kind of way, a light-hearted way, then that means he likes me.

He and I will also speak directly to each other and to all of you. As Brent says, because we’ve discussed this, he doesn’t know how to talk Southern. I don’t really either, because I’ve been here less time than he has. I’m learning.

Brent shared an example with me about how at home one day his wife said, (and I’m sharing this with his permission,) “Oh, gee, it looks like the trash is getting pretty full.” And then hours later, the trash still being there, she commented about the trash still being there. The light finally goes on in Brent’s head and he says, “Oh, when you said that the trash was getting full, what you really meant was ‘Brent, take out the trash?’ ” At which point she said, “Yes.”

So, if we want Brent or me, for that matter, to take out the trash, tell us to take out the trash. I’m being light-hearted about this. These are smaller ways in which we can miscommunicate, and they’re also more fun to use as examples. But our goal in all of this is really to understand each other, not to change each other.

I’m not going to try to get you all to stop speaking Southern. I’m going to try to learn how to understand it and figure out when to take out the trash. And you might do the same and put some effort into learning how to speak Connecticut or Maine or Massachusetts every once in a while. But to understand that we have different ways, that’s the most important piece. Not to change each other, not to force each other to “fit in” to a set of norms or expectations that aren’t crucial.

So remember that we do all of this within a hopefully relatively safe container of having healthy relations covenants and a healthy relations team which can provide us and support us when we do get into trouble with communicating with each other or understanding each other.

So that doesn’t mean anything goes, is what I’m trying to say. We do stay within the covenants and we also don’t try to force each other to fit in. And I know it’s hard.

So, the reason why I’m talking about all of this relates to this mission. In church, in this church especially, we are building the beloved community in here so that we can also do it out there. And in order to do so, we need to welcome in new ways of being and doing church. There is no one right way of doing church or much of anything. Maybe landing on the moon has one right way or something like that, but for the most part, most of our lives, multiple different ways are okay. There’s no one right way.

And we’ve been learning about this in lots of smaller ways. I recently talked with the seniors at the senior lunch about pronouns and how to use them correctly now that we understand that we have more than two genders and that gender is not binary.

We have added visual descriptions to who we are as worship leaders as we come up for each of our turns during the service. That is for a few different reasons, but including for people who have partial vision loss but not complete blindness, it helps them be able to find us later. You want to talk to the minister, knowing to look for bright pink can be really helpful if it’s someone that can see colors. So accessibility is part of this. We’re doing slides with better visibility. People with vision issues, have a better chance of reading the words to the hymns, we’re beginning to add more ASL to our services, lots of different ways that any one change might be kind of small, all together, they’re huge, they’re enormous. We’re doing it people, this past year together, we’ve been doing it.

We’re building a bigger and better, more open, more inclusive, more accessible, beloved community. And we are also doing it in bigger ways, both within this church and within the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Some of these bigger ways include some amazing work that just came out of a recent board retreat. We’re going to be working on some of the ways to dismantle white supremacy culture by changing the way that we do our monitoring reports, focusing more on qualitative reporting than quantitative reporting. We both here and in the UUA are working on changing our bylaws and policies using simpler language so that more people can understand, so that more people can understand how a congregational meeting is run, so that they can better participate, have a chance of participating.

Let’s face it, back in the day when we were super, super strict with Robert’s rules, you had to study it. You really had to study it. If you wanted to get up and make a change or do something effectively in a meeting, it took a lot of work and a lot of intelligence. Now we’re making it simpler so more people can participate in democratic systems and in church polity.

So remember, it’s not just here in church that we’re doing this. We’re also doing it at home, in our marriages, in our workplaces. Think about how two people get married from two different families of origin. You have to figure out all sorts of things, like whether to put the toothpaste cap on, which direction the toilet paper goes, how to spend your holidays.

Culture is little, little tiny things that are unwritten all over the place, as well as the big humongous things that can really break our relationships in half. So part of building this beloved community is about learning all of these, maybe not every single one, but learning a lot more of these different ways of being and doing so that all can belong.

And today we’re focusing on multigenerational culture. Church now has six adult generations. SIX. Six different adult cultures about the best or right way to do church. SIX.

We have the greatest generation who are the oldest members of our congregation in their upper 90s, but they’re still here.
We have the silent generation. Those are the folks who grew up during the depression and who fought in World War II, who tend to be pretty traditional and conservative when it comes to finances. They’re very much institutionalists.
We had the baby boomer generation who followed the few civil rights leaders who weren’t all that silent in the generation, like Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a silent generation exception, but was followed by lots and lots of baby boomers, right? Baby boomers who did all of this work around civil rights, and there was a lot of civil unrest, and then paradoxically, to my Gen X mind, went ahead and created the workaholic culture of the 80s, still working on that. Still working on understanding y ‘all. But I’m working on it.
Then we have Gen X who, unlike the free love that the baby boomers experienced, came of age during the AIDS epidemic and learned that sex was kind of like playing Russian roulette, and was a potential death sentence. That is formative on a young person’s outlook in the world, so maybe you can understand why we tend to be those cynical people. We’re also the middle child between the baby boomers and the millennials, which are two enormous generations on either side of us, and we often act like the middle child.
And then we have the millennials, who are people who grew up with a lot more technology than we did. They experienced 9 /11 when they were kids.
We have Gen Z, who are the Zoomers, who just came into adulthood the last several years and who are digital natives. They do not remember a time before smartphones existed, never mind black and white TVs.

And we’re all adults with the things that shaped us, shaped our generational cohorts in terms of our outlooks on the world and our understandings of our relationships to institutions, whether we’re institutionalists or anti-institutionalists, all sorts of different things come into the mix of those multiple generational cultures. Six.

And that is not including all of the other ways in which we have an experienced culture, like our ethnicities, our social class, our education levels. That also comes into play. So this is a really complex mix of cultures is what I’m trying to say.

If you are a follower of social media, You may have noticed that there are some generational wars going on. Primarily between the baby boomers and the millennials. That’s where that phrase “okay boomer” comes from. But also between Gen Z and their elder siblings, the millennials. The most recent thing is tearing apart their method of decorating in what they call millennial gray, which the millennials say is a reaction to the baby boomers way too bright chaotic colors of their childhood, that they need something calmer like plain old gray.

There’s also (this is one of my favorites) a fight about how to make the bed. You all heard this one. So baby boomers, greatest generation, silent generation, all make the bed with a bottom sheet and a top sheet. And then maybe a blanket, comforter, whatever, on top of all that. If you’re a millennial or a zoomer, you’re most likely not using the top sheet. And this really upsets the boomers, really upsets them. Gen X could go either way. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. Being the middle child, we are often forgotten and somehow nobody’s making fun of us in social media ’cause they don’t remember we exist, but in any case. I’m being lighthearted and fun about it, and it’s also serious, right?

All these things come into play in our church life. If we can’t figure out how to use the phone, if we don’t know what the rules are for how to use the phone or email or text, how do we communicate with each other in church when we have so many ways of communicating. I think what we really need to do is learn about and understand each other and our various cultures that we come from. We need to be curious about each other, take away the pressure to fit in, the pressure to do church or whatever else it is, the way that it has always been done, which is a myth anyway, but still persists.

I promised you the offering plate story today. So I’m wrapping up and here’s the offering plate story. When I was a kid, I loved church. I grew up in a very liberal congregational UCC church. We had the choirs, the adult choirs, the kid choirs, the youth choirs, the handbell choirs. We had the robes, not just for the ministers, but all of the different choirs. We had gloves for the handbells. We did New England church. And we had “Holy, Holy, Holy”, and “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee”. The big, huge, joyful organ music with these long processions and robes and pageantry.

And we were relatively low church compared to the Catholics, but I loved it, I loved it. And there were so many rules that went along with it, including (and you had to learn this before confirmation) how to pass the church offering plate correctly. None of this willy-nilly stuff that we do here. The usher hands it to you on the end of the row, you pass the plate all the way down to the end of your own pew without putting any money or envelopes or anything in it. That would be rude. It has to go all the way down, then the first person at the end of the pew puts their money in. As it comes back, that’s when you get to give your money to the church. And only then.

We can adjust and learn new ways like Brent is helping us learn today. You may have noticed during our candle lighting music that he had some new ways of using his voice. So he’s gonna demonstrate for us quickly, right? So here is the old traditional way of using one’s voice. (Brent sings “Spirit of Life”.) And here is the new modern weird, because we’re in Austin, way of using one’s voice as a vo-coder. (Brent sings using a vo-coder, the audience laughs) Someone yelled out that was awesome.

So our point being, We are a living tradition. Our traditions change. We don’t necessarily throw out the old ways. We’re still gonna sing “Spirit of Life,” the way that Brent sang it for us first. But we also welcome in other music. We welcome in other ways of being or doing church. We can adjust. We can learn new ways. We can grieve old losses, we can grow and remain a thriving, vital, if slightly different congregation or family or whatever. It’s all about us building Beloved Community everywhere we are and everywhere we may go.

May it always be so. Amen and blessed be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

by Eric Williams

Blessed is the path on which you travel.
Blessed is the body that carries you upon it.
Blessed is your heart that has heard the call.
Blessed is your mind that discerns the way.
Blessed is the gift that you will receive by going.
Truly blessed is the gift that you will become on the Journey.

May you go forth in peace.
Amen and Blessed be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

2024 Water Communion

September 2, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave and Rev. Chris Jimmerson
September 1, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

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

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

RIVER CALL
by the Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti

Between rocking the boat
and sitting down;
between stirring things up,
and peaceably going along,

We find ourselves
here,
in community.

Each called
from many different
journeys,
many different
life paths,
onto this river road.

Some are here
because of the rocking of
the boat
has been too much:
too much tumult,
too much uncertainty,
too much pain.

Some are here with questions
about where the boat is going;
how best to steer it;
where this journey ends.

Others are here
as lovers of the journey,
lovers of life itself.

Here in front
beside
behind
each a passenger;
each a captain;
doing the best we can.

“Rest here, in your boat,
with me,” the river calls;
“Listen to how I flow,
the sound of life coursing all around you.”

Let the current hold you,
let the current guide you;
the river that gently flows
through your soul,
whispers:

“Come, let us worship.”

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
By Langston Hughes

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

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Sermon

STORY OF WATER COMMUNION
Chris

On the first Sunday of September each year, it is our tradition at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin to begin our new church year with our much beloved water communion service.

We bring water, perhaps from a cherished spot – water that holds special symbolic meaning for us, and then carrying that meaning in our thoughts and hearts, we blend all of the waters each of us have brought together just as we gather to create shared meaning and a culture of love and care in this religious community.

If this happens to be your first water communion service, I promise more explanation and instructions will be coming soon.

Last year, we added a new element to our annual ritual – retelling the story of how our water communion tradition first came to be within our larger Unitarian Universalist faith.

For by remembering our stories, we are reminded of the wellsprings of our faith – values that flow to us from those who came before.

In 1980, a group of feminists within our UU movement were advocating a greater role for women in our ministry and in our worship, as well as eliminating sexist language, such as “mankind”, from our guiding documents of that period.

Two of them, Carolyn McDade and Lucile Schuck Longview put together a worship service for the Women and Religion Continental Convocation of Unitarian Universalists.

They called that service “Coming Home Like Rivers to the Sea”.

Here is how they described that first water communion ceremony:

“Making our way like rivers from places distant and near, we come together to give shape to a new spirituality.

… we come together to question. To hear. To share. To speak. To inspire. And to celebrate through new rituals, knowing that our energy and our love are transforming.

Celebrating now our connectedness, we choose water as our symbol of our empowerment … a spirituality that uplifts, empowers and connects.”

They used rinsed out cosmetics and perfume containers in which to bring their water as a symbol of, quote, ” … abandoning products that exploit perceived feminine inadequacies to make room for shared power”.

So we inherit these communal values, rooted in transformative love – a river of love that flows throughout our universe – a river that replenishes us and a river for which we serve as tributaries, adding to that river of ever growing love, centering our faith in love.

And this we do symbolically each year, with our water communion.

THE RIVER
Michelle

As Unitarian Universalists of the twenty first century, water communion is one of our most beloved rituals. Though it is one of our newer traditions, clocking in at only 44 or so years old, water communion has become an essential part of our living tradition; a tradition which changes and adapts over time, much as a river does.

Rivers shape the environment in which humans live as much as humans shape the environment in which the rivers flow. Rivers flood their banks, dry up, flow peaceably along, carve new paths, cool off hot bodies, and sustain life of all kinds. It is hard to imagine life in this corner of earth without rivers or the lakes, streams, creeks, and springs which they form or by which the rivers are formed.

And so rivers are an apt metaphor for talking about the Eternal – whether that is within the context of process theology or a never-ending stream of prophetic voices calling for our attention or a way in which we might begin to understand the Tao, or a way to embrace our own Living Tradition.

One of the things I have loved best about my calling as an interim minister, thus far, is how each congregation, no matter how big or small, has had a role to play in shaping, or forming, my own faith. And, as if that were not enough, once I have been re-shaped, or re-formed, I then have the opportunity to bring my new learnings, or insights, to the next congregation. As I have done already here, and would like to do so again now.

One of these former congregations had the practice of beginning each of the children’s religious education classes with a common sharing of joys and sorrows. That, in and of itself, was not all that unusual, but they added to the practice a ritual of passing a small bowl of water and a little dish of salt around the table as they did so. Each child would share their joys and/or sorrows, then add a tiny pinch of salt to the bowl of water, and stir it with their finger. The salt in the water represented the natural composition of human tears. Whether our tears are of sorrow, or of joy, they all contain water and salt. The bowl of water that was passed from person to person was a bowl full of the community’s tears – the happy ones and the sad ones, too.

Whether the river that carries you through the world is a river of Love, as Rev. Chris has described, or a river of Life, as I might say, the River carries with it the power to heal and the power to bless.

INVITATION TO WATER COMMUNION
Chris

In a moment, when the music begins playing, I will invite you to come forward down either of these two aisles, carrying the water you have brought with you, or you may use water we have provided at the table up front. When you reach one of the tables, please pour your water into one of the larger vases, holding in your mind and heart what it symbolizes that is holy for you, and, perhaps, what is sacred about the place from which it is drawn. You are welcome to stir in a little salt as in Rev. Michelle’s story.

You may return afterward down this center aisle and may also light a candle during this time if you are moved to do so.

If you have joined us online today, please feel free to replicate this ritual in any way that works for the space from which you are watching.

You may notice some folks bringing forward an empty cup, as a reflection of the water insecurity in Gaza right now. We have provided empty containers on our tables for anyone who may wish to join them in solidarity.

After the service, we have created a station in Howson Hall where you may create text and artwork expressing what the water symbolizes for you. If you are online, please feel free to post text or images in the comments.

Now, let our water communion begin.

BLESSING OF THE WATERS
Michelle

The waters gathered together, here, in these common bowls, and among all of you online, represent all of the symbolic meanings you have brought with you today. Memory, Hope, Joy, Heritage, Anger, Resilience, Justice, Friendship, Tradition, Forgiveness, Transformation, Love, and much more has been stirred together. These common bowls hold within them so much of the mystery and meaning of communal life so let us, together, bless these waters. All are invited to hold out our arms in a gesture of silent blessing … and then say together: These waters are blessed. May our lives also be blessed.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

As you sail along on the River of Life and of Love,
may the winds be gentle,
your sails strong,
the weather fair,
your friends plenty,
and the waters replenishing.
May the congregation say: Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

2024 Pride Sunday

August 5, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave and Carrie Holley-Hurt
August 4, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Come join us as we kick off LGBTQ Pride Week here in Austin! It takes courage to live authentically. We’ll have queer speakers, awesome music, and a glitter blessing. Come celebrate with 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

A PROTEST AND A PARTY
by Hannah Roberts Villnave

People sometimes ask:
Is Pride a protest
Or a party?

And the answer is
Of course
Yes.

And why not?

Why not
Rejoice as we resist
Dance as we demand change
Celebrate as we create community that delights in
All of who we are?

So bring all of that
With you this morning.

Bring your policy demands
Bring your glitter
Bring your supreme court broken heart
Bring your rainbow socks
Bring the emptiness you feel
For our siblings gone too soon.

Bring your Gloria Estefan remix
Bring your tender hope for change
Bring your most garish eyeshadow
Bring your spirit, tattered and battered
By a world that seems insistent on
Choosing fear and hate.

Gather up all these things
And bring them here
To a place where we don’t
Have to shoulder these burdens
Or celebrate these joys
Alone.

Come, let us worship Together.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

JESUS AT THE GAY BAR
By Jay Hulme

He’s here in the midst of it –
right at the centre of the dance floor,
robes hitched up to His knees
to make it easy to spin.

At some point in the evening
a boy will touch the hem of His robe
and beg to be healed, beg to
be anything other than this;
and He will reach His arms out,
sweat-damped, and weary from dance.

He’ll cup the boy’s face in His hand
and say,
my beautiful child
there is nothing in this heart of yours
that ever needs to be healed.

Sermon

NOTE: Carrie Holley-Hurt’s homily is an ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any errors.

Carrie Holley-Hurt

So, fun fact, pride at this church is actually my anniversary. Almost a decade ago I showed up at this church knowing nothing about you people and fell in love hard. So this is very exciting for me that I get to participate in this pride ceremony today. So when Reverend Michelle, who is generous, asked me what I wanted to do, how I wanted to contribute, I said, well, I want to give my testimony.

And I know that might be a little weird, but y’all, I come from a Pentecostal tradition, and so I’m going to give my testimony. And I hope that for those of you who were raised in a fundamentalist or otherwise soul-crushing church, that this does not trigger you. In fact, I hope my testimony is liberating and that it will inspire you to think about your own stories, your own narrative of growth and liberation.

So growing up I was different. I didn’t fit in at all. My body didn’t fit. My style didn’t fit. My mind didn’t fit. And I tried as best I could. I tried to act and look just like everybody else. I tried with clothes and hair, even got an eating disorder. I worked so hard to hide myself and to fit in all the right boxes. And then at some point that all just became too much. It was too hard, too stressful.

And after leaving my religion, I started to allow myself to be more me. And some of that included acting on my queerness. And it was freeing, but only up to a point, because I quickly found out that everyone I loved was not always loving about who I was. And so I stopped the process of coming out and went back into hiding, well, half-hiding because I couldn’t actually hide from myself anymore.

Then many years later, my own kid came out as queer, followed by several of my loved ones who are younger, and I realized that I never wanted them to go into hiding. I knew that they were perfect and wonderful as is. And I did not want the world to suffer because they felt the need to hide. So I came out again. I fully came out to my loved ones and this time I didn’t do it for their acceptance but as a display of my own acceptance and a really beautiful thing started to happen. I began the process of accepting all the parts of who I am, not just the queer part, but the neurodivergent part, the size of my body, my disabilities, in all of the ways that I will never conform to the societal standards of good enough.

I will never fit into those boxes. You see, in embracing myself I stopped embracing the boxes of patriarchy and internalized homophobia. When I decided I was going to fully embrace my queerness and stopped hiding it started to lose control over me. This to me is the beauty of queerness and those who have said yes to their queerness. They say, You, system of suprimacy, you don’t get to have control over me. I’ll not be confined by your boxes, the system that tries to punish me into conforming. You no longer get to call the shots.

So pride then is pointing to the liberation that is found in this act. Liberation on the most personal level. And please know that this message isn’t just for queer people. I love straight people. Some of my best friends are straights. Like my husband, who is a straight cis-man.

No, this message is for all of us because all of us need liberation. All of us feel the weight of the boxes that systems of supremacy try to force on us. The current contrived controversy with the Olympic boxers show us just how demanding and punishing these systems can be on all of us.

We all need the liberation of self. That deep embrace of our own inherent dignity and worthiness. And that comes when we stop conforming and we stop hiding ourselves. We embrace ourselves. And while I know not everyone can do this publicly, because it’s just not safe, I get it. When those of us who can – do. Let us all be those people. Let us continue to do the work of becoming a more radically welcoming church so that we can help others on their journey.

Thank you.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave

This is my story. Or a piece of it, anyway. A portion of the truth … that is me, that is my spouse, that is my family, that is you, that is all of us. Because I can’t really separate out my story from the stories of those I love, those I know, those I don’t know, but with whom I have crossed paths in some way. Our stories are interconnected because we are interconnected on the deepest level. Our stories go out into the world, shape and form each other, and then return to us, re-shaping and reforming ourselves, again and again.

This story is a Love story and I don’t mean a romantic, frilly sort of love, though that is a piece of it at times. I mean the kind of Love story in which people come to love themselves, and each other, in a most agonizingly authentic way and then have the courage to say to the world – “This is who I am!” and “This is who we are!”

The opening setting for this Love story, my Love story, is Andover Newton Theological School, a beautiful campus filled with tall trees and brick buildings, sitting on a hilltop just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, a rather typical New England scene. It began fifteen years ago, and I was deep in the process of ministerial transformation, of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister. While my own faith tradition had a long history of welcoming, affirming, and marrying people of all sexual orientations, these were new practices, or emerging practices, for many of the faith traditions present at the school and were a frequent topic of theological conversation. As was the question of gender and gender identity. The very first openly transgender people were attending the school, and the very first transgender panel had recently been held. Gay marriage was only a few years old in Massachusetts and less than a year old in nearby Connecticut, where I am from. What I’m trying to say in setting this scene is that everything felt very new and fresh and groundbreaking in the area of GLBT rights. (Yes, it was still GLBT back then.)

And so it was within this cultural context, that I headed to the first day of class, Pastoral Care for GLBT People, with one of my best friends, Craig. We were joking around about something some of our friends had said about sexual attraction and how it works, and we decided to playa game, a bit of an experiment to bring back to the conversation. We would go to class and pick out the person who most immediately, without thinking about it, struck us as attractive and then share about it with each other later. As I scanned the room, I immediately noticed a very butch-presenting person – short, spiky hair, tats on her arms, thick, brown leather bracelet, cool sunglasses hanging around her neck. Oof. I immediately felt the attraction and wanted to get to know her, and so I went and sat kind of nearby. Afterward, I told Craig who I had chosen. It was the first time I ever admitted out loud to another person that I felt attracted to someone who was a woman or was genderqueer. I was in my late thirties.

About two months later, that person had become my girlfriend, my first, and only, girlfriend. Coming out on campus was relatively easy because I lived there, which was kind of like living in a fishbowl. I met up with her after an evening class and while walking around campus she took up my hand and held it. Boom! Done. I was out at seminary. Scary, but overall, not too painful.

What was terrifying was the prospect of coming out to my family and some of my friends. I was afraid of losing, or damaging, relationships with people I loved and cared about. And I did, but not the most important ones. Here’s where social location is important. I was a white, cisgender woman, well into adulthood, super well-educated, living in a liberal area of the country, following a calling to ministry in the most progressive faith tradition available. I had all of the advantages, all of the privileges, except for money, that would bode well for coming out, and still, coming out was terrifying. I risked, and experienced real loss. I lost relationships and I lost jobs. We all do. It takes courage to come out. Coming out is an act of resistance, coming out is an act of defiance, and coming out is an act of pride.

But my story, my Love story, did not end there. There was to be another coming out. Less than a year after meeting each other, my girlfriend came out as transgender. FTM, female to male, as we said back in the day. He had newly come into this identity, partly as a result of some of the work he had done at seminary. My girlfriend was really a transman. Many of you know him, as my spouse Micah. Yes, I married my ex-girlfriend. (That’s my favorite trans joke … Okay, it’s my only trans joke, but I really like it.)

So now we had a second coming out as well as a gender transition before us. These were hard, on both of us, in different ways. While I shared with you the story of my being attracted to a woman, having a first girlfriend, and using she/her pronouns to describe it all, that’s the story from my historical perspective. Now, both Micah and I avoid the use of his deadname and use he/him pronouns to talk about him at any age, long before he came out as trans, long before he came out as a butch lesbian, long before he played softball, long before he joined the Girl Scouts, back to when he was a little kid who played football on the playground with the other little boys, until they told him he couldn’t play anymore because he was a girl.

Returning to our Love story, that summer right after graduation, Micah came out to his family and friends, shared his new name and pronouns, and began gender-affirming care. We joined support groups for trans people and trans partners. We marveled at the way people began to treat us differently when they thought, incorrectly, that what they were seeing was a heterosexual couple. I got through some terrifying moments when I was afraid for his safety. One or the other of us often raged at the mistreatment he received, especially in relationship to his healthcare. And we got through it all, we still get through it all, with both Love and courage. By the next February, Micah had legally changed both his name and gender marker, and knowing we were to get married later that summer, also took on my last name and became Micah Shiloh LaGrave.

Our wedding was beautiful. We were married on the beach in Connecticut. I wore cargo shorts and a tiara. People who were walking along the beach joined in the circle of family and friends surrounding us for the ceremony, strangers welcomed in to the trans/partner wedding.

But before that, we worried that our wedding wouldn’t happen at all, or would only happen with great difficulty, at least legally. Because first we had to get a wedding license and even though Micah had all his gender marker papers in place, and even though gay marriage was legal in Connecticut, it wasn’t almost everywhere else. It was an exciting, but also fraught time. We worried the whole way down to get the license, and while standing in line, and while being helped. And we thought we were right to be worried, because as soon we handed over our papers it became clear there was a problem. The clerk took them in back and there was a lot of whispering and consulting going on before she came back and finally said, IIUmm, you both have the same last name? Are you related?/I We laughed with relief. They didn’t care that we were queer, they were concerned we might be committing incest! It never occurred to us it might be an issue that Micah had already taken my last name a few months back.

All of this is to say, that while there are moments of humor and misunderstanding, and lots of love along the way, coming out is long, hard, tough work. Coming out is never finally and fully over. It must be done again and again. And so it is, that we have Pride every year. We support those who are newly coming out and those who have been coming out for a long, long time. And we remember, that Pride began as a riot, led by trans women of color, as an act of resistance, and defiance, and of agonizing joy to throw off the cloak of oppression and finally act free by simply being ourselves – out loud, in public, and on the streets.

Pride says, still says – you cannot, will not hold me down. You policymakers, you legislators, you enforcers, you false prophets, you conservative religious fundamentalists, you oppressors, you the system, you cannot hold us down. We will persevere and we will survive as we have always done – whether we are lesbian, gay, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, intersexual, transgender, non-binary, nonconforming, polyamorous, or plain old queer, we will persevere, we will survive! We are courageous! We are proud! And we will celebrate!

May it always be so, Amen, and Blessed Be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

As we go forth, we offer you this final blessing.

May you receive and reflect love, everywhere you go, and know-in your deepest heart and in every day – you matter and you belong.

May you hold on to hope and your inner sparkle even when discouragement and despair beckon.

May the beauty that is you shine out, bright as the stars from which we came and to which we will return.

Together may we make this a place of welcome and healing, of connection and plurality.

Together may we practice compassion and courage, seeing and celebrating and supporting each other.

Together may we be the sparkling force of love that our world needs.

Blessed by this community and by the divine, go forth and celebrate with pride!

Amen and Blessed Be

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Reproductive Justice for All

July 23, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave and Guest Speakers
July 21, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Who is Reproductive Justice for? Why does it matter to you if you don’t have a uterus, or you are a woman past reproductive age? We will hear from four speakers who are committed to the fight for Reproductive Justice, including abortion health care but also much more. What does Reproductive Justice mean to all of us?” How can we engage and live our UU faith 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

THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE
by Elizabeth Mount

To begin, to start, to create, to undertake,
To grow, to promise, to increase, to generate.
All these are our birthright.

As we are created, so may we create.
The ability and the choice to create is sacred.
To withdraw that chance from any person without their permission
Would be a violent act, the cutting off of life itself.

And yet, as precious is the right to simply not.
To end, to terminate, to stop, to discontinue,
To rest, to hibernate, to impede, to prevent.
These, too, are our birthright.

For without consent, our ability to create
becomes not a blessing, but a burden and an imposition.
Without space for a “no,” there can be no trustworthy “yes.”

Today, we come to this holy place and time,
Ready to invoke the divine, to make space for the sacred,
To co-create community once again.
This too is a choice,
you cannot, you may not,
be coerced into relationship with the holy or with one another.

I invite you, I ask you to join us.
I respect it if you will not, today, or ever.

More sacred than any other individual need, is Choice,
The right to know oneself.
The right to know what you are ready for,
what you need, to stretch when you can,
to pause when you will,
to know your body, your mind, your spirit better than anyone else.
And ultimately,
to be trusted with the responsibility of your own living.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

REVOLUTIONARIES ARE EVERYDAY PEOPLE
By Linci Comy

The whole point about revolution
Is seeing the things that are intolerable
And insisting on making change
And it takes everyday people to do that
The people in power, they don’t want change
They don’t want to see it
It’s the everyday people
That are the revolutionaries
You don’t wake up one day and
Suddenly have this revolutionary fervor
That you’re going to turn the world upside down
One day you wake up and realize
That you’re just not going to do
The same thing again and again and again and
Expect a different outcome
And that you’re going to start to feel in your soul
What place you want to live in
Where you want to be
And you’re going to start to create that
With your community
So revolutionary fervor is really just that
Great space of change
And transition
That we learn to feel
Revolutionary people
That’s just the We
We the people
That’s the revolutionary you see
So welcome to the world
Just open your eyes
And revolution grows
That’s how we change
Everything we know

Centering

HOLDING REALITY AND POSSIBILITY TOGETHER
by Sam Trumbore

What an unearned blessing to delight in the calming peace of this space;
to hear the bird’s [robin’s] song again at daybreak;
to feel the warmth in this room,
and to enjoy the promise of summer [almost] upon us.
Each moment of wakefulness has so many gifts that offer energy and delight.

Yet, too often they seem unavailable
as the weight of our troubles press down on us.
The threats to our well being, real or exaggerated,
feel like mosquitoes in the night looking for a place to land.
Minds become captive to rising flood waters: forceful, murky, threatening and ominous.

Even in moments of great danger, the direction of attention is a choice.
Fear can dominate the mind, binding it like a straitjacket.
Or love can unbind it and open it to resource and opportunity.
The soil of the mind can be watered with kindness.
The thorns can be removed one by one to appreciate the buds ready to flower.

Great possibilities await us even if all we can see is the cliff before us.
The grandeur of life, of which we are a part,
scatters rainbows in every direction, even as the deluge approaches.
Holding reality and possibility together is the holy, hope-filled work of humanity

If … we choose it, again and again, in love.

Sermon

Elizabeth Gray, Reproductive Justice Social Action Chair

People ask me: why are you so passionate about Repro Justice? They assume I’ve had an abortion, and this is personal. Well, no, I haven’t had an abortion. Although unintended pregnancies are very common, I’ve been fortunate: I haven’t had birth control fail, I haven’t been the victim of coercion, I haven’t been impregnated by rape or incest. But mostly: I got a late start.

So no, I haven’t had an abortion, but I’m passionate about this topic because I’ve experienced reproductive freedom. I know what a difference it made in my life, and I cannot fathom that we would not demand the same for all people.

One of the four tenets of repro justice: I have been able to choose to have children, and how many to have. And, a second tenet of repro justice, I’ve been able to raise those children in a safe and sustainable environment. That’s reproductive freedom.

A third tenet of reproductive justice is the right to choose NOT to have children. And I know that if I HAD experienced an unwanted pregnancy, I would have been able to get an abortion. I had access to the procedure: the money, child care, ability to take time off, transportation,-everything you need to access this health care.

The last tenet of reproductive justice is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy. Now, that one strikes home. Pregnancy is not health neutral. Birth can be brutal and physically damaging. I experienced birth trauma with my first child, and I was left with a lifelong daily reminder, pelvic organ prolapse. I am by no means alone in this: I know that statistically, I share that that condition to at least some extent with half the women in this room who have given birth. Urinary incontinence, anybody?

In addition, during the labor and delivery I was subjected to medical procedures I did not want, and for three days after my son was born, I had a screaming baby I was determined to breast feed, but no breast milk. That wasn’t resolved until I was rushed to the hospital with post-partum hemorrhage due to, it was discovered, my placenta still abnormally attached to the uterine wall-no breast milk because my body thought I was still pregnant–I would have died without blood transfusions and medical intervention.

The birth of my second child also involved a life-threatening condition. My son Patrick, a very active child, was also evidently active in the womb: so much so that he wound the umbilical cord around his chest and was lodged sideways in my uterus. This is known as a transverse lie, and going into labor leads to serious complications-up to and including death of the mother or fetus. So I had a C-section, although that was also higher risk due to the position of the baby.

Does any of this sound familiar? The two years since Dobbs has been like a nationwide seminar in obstetrical emergencies. Well, even with those unexpectedly difficult encounters, I experienced reproductive freedom. I told my husband I was done having children, and it was abstinence or a vasectomy. He chose the latter, and I am not making this up: his urologist was Dr. Dick Chopp.

So no, I didn’t have an abortion, but I have experienced reproductive freedom, and everything that I am today – my whole life – is defined by that. Pregnancy, gestation, birth, lactation, and parenting – let’s not forget parenting – are all life- altering events. They have physical, emotional, and economic consequences. They are risks that require consent. No person should be forced into bearing a child they do not want.

I hope my story illustrates that Repro Justice is not only for people who have had — or will need-an abortion. Repro Justice is for All. Of. Us. For women who may not ever experience an unwanted pregnancy, but still have to deal with other aspects of sexual health and self-determination, for trans folks who want to make choices about their bodies, for people with disabilities who have a right to desire, intimacy, and sexual pleasure. For women who have children, and the people who parent them. And for men. Today, in this service, RJ is about men too. First, it is personal for men. You men all know and likely love someone who had a baby or wants to have a baby or might get pregnant. You care about them; it affects you when they are denied their human rights.

Second, your body may not be under attack, but you deserve the right to control the future of your family. Just b/c the govt. isn’t controlling your body as a man, doesn’t mean the govt. isn’t also controlling you. What’s next? What other of your freedoms are at risk? You should get to make your own decisions. You are a stakeholder.

And third, for the white men here or listening online: do you believe that you have an obligation to speak up on racism? For straight men, do you believe you have an obligation to speak up on homophobia? Yes, well, then this is the same thing. If one of us is oppressed, all of us are oppressed. Silence is consent. You need to be an ally.

We need to hear from men. We need to hear their personal stories about reproductive rights and justice and freedom. We need to hear them speak out publicly to call out bad actors, to refute the lies and misogyny pervading our society right now. We need them to speak up privately, with friends and family, to normalize discussion about reproductive health, reinforcing the behavior that we do say the word abortion. And menstruation. And infertility. And all the words we have stigmatized and silenced because they deal with reproduction and reproductive health.

This service is giving all of us the chance to step up. We have invited three people today to tell their stories of Reproductive Justice. First is Samuel Franco, Austin-based member of Men4Choice, a national organization dedicated to mobilizing male allies into the fight for self-determination and full control over our bodies.

Then we will hear from Kelenne Blake, executive director of Black Mamas, ATX, the community partner the Reproductive Justice team here has chosen to support as part of our mission.

And finally, Toga Pendrake, a member of our Repro Justice team, will read the anonymous account of a man in this congregation who works with a community network providing abortion medication to people in states with abortion bans. Thank you.

Samuel Franco, Men4Choice

My name is Samuel Franco my pronouns are he/him and I’m here to speak on men for choice and thank you for saying those words because it is extremely important that we have male allies in this fight.

I’ll start by telling you a little story my story Many years ago when I was a much younger man I had an abortion and I say those words not to take anything away from women or people who can get pregnant but to stand in solidarity with those that can get pregnant, and to normalize the conversation, to accept the fact that the role that men play in this conversation.

Many years ago, when I was finishing up grad school, I met a young lady who was also finishing her studies in El Paso. That’s where I’m from. And we took a liking to each other, and we knew we were both going to leave El Paso afterwards. Well, shortly about two weeks after getting to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I had moved to, she called me up and let me know that she was pregnant. So I rushed back to El Paso, not telling anybody in my family, no friends, nothing. Just me and her.

Growing up a Latino Catholic on the border, abortion is not something we talked about. It’s pretty much stigmatized. So we spent the weekend discussing our lives, our hopes, our dreams, where we were at, what we were going to do, and knowing that we weren’t going to be together, and what was best for us and best for that potential child. And we decided that was best for that potential child was not having that child. And that was best for us at that time. So Monday we went to the clinic and did what we had to do.

I tell you this story because I was reminded of it a couple of years ago after Dobbs. And I was sitting there looking at social media and I saw all these protests and I thought to myself, wait a minute, why wasn’t I there? And then I remembered, “Oh, because I’m a heterosexual cisgendered male, and those algorithms are not for me.” Right?

And so then I started looking around, and I thought to myself, “There’s got to be more men like me.” And that’s when I was introduced to Men4Choice. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about Men4Choice today. Men for choice was founded in 2015 with a mission to activate, educate, and mobilize male allies in the movement for reproductive rights.

Recognizing that too many men have remained passive in this critical issue, Men For Choice aims to change that by engaging men as active partners and allies. The organization believes that reproductive freedom is a fundamental right and that everyone should have the autonomy to make decisions about their own bodies without interference. Men4Choice is unique in their strategic focus on young men, particularly those aged 18 through 25, through initiatives like their youth fellowship program. This program is designed to build a pipeline of well -trained allies who can influence and support reproductive rights both now and in the future.

By educating young men on the realities and impacts of reproductive laws, Men4Choice equips them with the knowledge and tools needed to become effective advocates. Their work is crucial for several reasons.

Firstly, engaging men in the fight for reproductive rights helps dismantle the deeply ingrained misogyny and sexism that often drive restrictive laws and policies. By changing the culture from within, Men4Choice aims to create a more equitable society where everyone’s rights are respected.

Secondly, the organization amplifies the voices and efforts of women and those directly affected by anti-choice legislation, providing much needed support and solidarity. Men4Choice has made significant strides by organizing educational events, mobilizing volunteers for on-the-ground actions, and running impactful digital campaigns. In conclusion, the work of Men4Choice is vital not only for financing reproductive rights, but also for fostering a culture of equity and respect.

By bringing men into the fold as allies, they help to build a stronger, more inclusive movement that can effectively challenge and change oppressive systems. I encourage everyone to learn more about men for choice and consider you can contribute to this essential cause.

Thank you

Kelenne Blake, Black Mamas ATX

Good morning, everyone. My name is Kelene Blake. My voice is a little bit unusual, but maybe only a couple of people might recognize that. And I’m the executive director of Black Mamas ATX. So I’m gonna be a little softer than usual today, but I wanted to talk about reproductive justice from my perspective as a black woman who works in this field.

Now specifically, pointed out so well, there are four parts to reproductive justice.

The ability to maintain bodily autonomy, that is huge.
The ability to have children,
Not have children,
And if you do have children, to be able to raise those children in safe and sustainable communities.

These are things that black women have been systematically deprived of from the inception of the United States project that we’re existing in. And what is interesting is that reproductive justice has been created by a black woman. And I first learned about reproductive justice not in birth and not related to abortion, But since the Supreme Court rolled back abortion rights, I’ve heard a lot more in, you know, communities that are not mine and specifically focused on abortion and that is really important. It has been an important catalyst for this change and for the awareness of this concept. However, this is a whole concept, and so I’m going to talk about some of the other aspects of it as well.

So, I learned about this first, when I would say about eight years ago, maybe not about a decade ago, when The black community in particular was coming to grips with how prevalent, or how, not really how prevalent, but how traumatic police brutality was becoming in our community, and how often we were literally seeing modern day lynchings of black community members through social media.

How does reproductive justice come in there? How did I first learn about it then? One studies show, especially from that time, one of the first things that a lot of people, you know, hear when they find out they’re pregnant, you know, they’re like, “Oh, is it a boy or a girl?” That’s the first thing they want to ask, right, or, you know, they’re excited, they’re enthusiastic. Black women asked often, is it a boy or a girl? And if they found out it was a boy, their hearts would sink. Because – Trayvon Martin – because of the many black boys and men that were experiencing state-sanctioned violence.

Not to say black women were not, but as always, black women’s stories are not highlighted. But yes, so in this concept, the idea of safe, sustainable communities in which to raise your back boys and girls, is really important. No aspect of justice work is siloed or separate from the other aspects. It all is intertwined. And so it is really important to see this very necessary and valuable push to regain abortion rights in conjunction with all the other fights for justice and freedom and liberation of all the very different groups needing those same things.

The work that I do, we specifically work with folks who are pregnant and we provide doula support because If I’m going to be really honest, it feels very dangerous to be a pregnant black woman in a hospital giving birth or even with a midwife giving birth that that midwife is not black or birth center are any of these spaces and so Working with a doula you have someone who’s yes, they’re coaching you as the pregnant person through the birth But they’re also advocating for you and helping to prevent any dangers. And that is why they make such a difference.

But then, as part of reproductive justice, as part of helping black women and birthing folks survive and thrive, we also have to look at access to mental health support. We also have to help people pay their bills and rent. Last month, we had a mom who was about to be evicted with a newborn baby, and we had to work to get her into a space, so she has her own space to live. We have countless moms, and it’s increasing every month, who literally, their lights are getting shut off. They’re worried about their water getting shut off, right? And they’re pregnant and postpartum and have these newborns. This is part of that safe, sustainable community. We are having to build it kind of offline with our work as a small non-profit. But we need to be — we’re just plugging the gaps where we can.

This needs to be something that is accessible to everyone, everywhere, whether or not they know about Black Mamas ATX or one of our doulas could serve them. So that is my take on how we are working towards reproductive justice. We are in support of our brothers and sisters who are doing the hard and scary work of addressing abortion rights in Texas.

That is frightening. And whenever y’all need us, call us and we will be there to support you. I also want to be able to call you because there’s the everyday parts of it that’s happening as well that’s not as loud and not as not as I would say in the zeitgeist of the conversation you know so that is what I wanted to raise today as part of reproductive justice.

Thank you for hearing me out thank you for your attention and your kind faces as I’m up here a little nervous, but really appreciating your ear.

Toga Pendrake

Text unavailable at the writer’s request.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

Go in peace, with Love in your hearts, kindness on your lips, and compassion at your fingertips, blessing all others as you, yourselves, are now blessed.

Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

2024 Flower Communion

June 4, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Michelle LeGrave
June 2, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This Sunday we will hold our annual Flower Communion Service. Please join us for this much-loved Unitarian Universalist ritual exchange of flowers. During the service you will have the opportunity to add your flower(s) to large bouquets we will create in the sanctuary and to take a different flower with you, symbolizing both the unique, sacred beauty of each of us and the even greater beauty we create when we share that sacred uniqueness with one another.

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

“You 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.”

– Diego Valeri

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

FLOWER COMMUNION
Lynn Unger

What a gathering-the purple
tongues of iris licking out
at spikes of lupine, the orange
crepe skirts of poppies lifting
over buttercup and daisy.
Who can be grim
in the face of such abundance?
There is nothing to compare,
no need for beauty to compete.
The voluptuous rhododendron
and the plain grass
are equally filled with themselves,
equally declare the miracles
of color and form.
This is what community looks like-
this vibrant jostle, stem by stem
declaring the marvelous joining.
This is the face of communion,
the incarnation once more
gracefully resurrected from winter.
Hold these things together
in your sight-purple, crimson,
magenta, blue. You will
be feasting on this long after
the flowers are gone.

Sermon

On June 4, 1923, Rev. Norbert Capek, the minister of Prague Liberal Religious Fellowship, a Unitarian church, created what has become our flower communion.

Rev. Capek needed a symbolic ritual that would bind people together as they faced the impending threats from Nazism in neighboring Germany ..

Capek turned to the beauty of the surrounding countryside and created a communion where congregants would bring flowers from their gardens, fields or the roadside and share them with one another – symbolizing that just as no two flowers are exactly alike, so each of us has an inherent and unique beauty.

Capek’s wife, Maja, also an ordained minister, came to the United States in 1940 and introduced the ritual to U.S. Unitarians while she was here.

Unfortunately, she was unable to return to Prague at the time, because World War II had broken out.

It was only after the war that she learned that the Nazi’s had sent Capek to a concentration camp.

However, even in the concentration camp, he held a flower ceremony with his fellow prisoners, using whatever flowering weeds they could find, testifying to a love larger than themselves and that would outlive them – a ritual we still practice today – a ritual still symbolizing both the unique, sacred beauty of each of us and the even greater beauty we create when we share that sacred uniqueness with one another.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

As we go out into our world now, let us continue to share our unique gifts.

May we flourish and flower in communion with one another and all that is.

May we bring one another and our world delight.

May the congregation say, “Amen” and “Blessed Be”.

Go in peace.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

The Force of Possibility

May 23, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
and Casandra Ryan, VP of the UU Service Committee
May 19, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

From fighting for climate justice in the South Pacific, to assisting refugees in Ukraine, supporting migrants in Central America, and helping rebuild civil society in Haiti, please join us to learn about UUSC’s work around the world and how UU’s are partnering to promote peace, justice, and global solidarity.

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 first task in approaching another people,
another culture,
another religion,
is to take off our shoes,
for the place we are approaching is holy,
Else we find ourselves treading on others’ dreams.

– Max Warren, adapted

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

SUMMONS
by Aurora Levins Morales

Last night I dreamed
ten thousand grandmothers
from the twelve hundred corners of the earth
walked out into the gap
one breath deep
between the bullet and the flesh
between the bomb and the family.
They told me we cannot wait for governments.
There are no peacekeepers boarding planes.
There are no leaders who dare to say
every life is precious,
so it will have to be us.
They said we will cup our hands around each heart.
We will sing the earth’s song,
the song of water,
a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn to weeping,
the mourners will embrace,
and grief replace every impulse toward harm.
Ten thousand is not enough, they said,
so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of doves
into the sleep of the world. Wake up. Put on your shoes.
You who are reading this, I am bringing bandages
and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I think
I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner.
Let’s go.

Centering and Meditation

This is a prayer for all the travelers.
For the ones who start out in beauty, who fall from grace,
who step gingerly,
looking for the way back.
And for those who are born into the margins,
who travel from one liminal space to another,
crossing boundaries in search of center.

This is a prayer for the ones whose births
are a passing from darkness to darkness,
who all their lives are drawn toward the light,
and for those whose journeys
are a winding road that begins and ends in the same place,
though only when the journey is completed
do they finally know where they are.

For all the travelers, young and old, aching and joyful,
weary and full of life;
the ones who are here, and the ones who are not here;
the ones who are like you (and they’re all like you)
and the ones who are different (for in some ways, we each travel alone).

This is a prayer for traveling mercies,
And surefootedness,
for bread for your body and spirit,
for water,
for your safe arrival
and for everyone you see along the way.

– Angela Herrera

Sermon

THE FORCE OF POSSIBILITY
Casandra Ryan, VP of the UU Service Committee

Hello Friends! It is a joy to be with you on this beautiful day.

Thank you for welcoming me, and thank you to Mary and David Overton, for inviting me to be with you today, and to also be a part of last night’s celebration of legacy giving.

I know that many of us are working in different ways to promote justice in the world and at home – you are working to help your local community and protecting our nation’s democracy-thank you! And I know that there is so much strife and devastation around us, in Ukraine, Palestine and Israel, Central America, and in the U.S. So many important causes that demand our attention.

It’s why I am especially grateful to be with you, to share a bit about some good that is happening.

***

In her 2019 message of support to the youth climate strikers, author, Rebecca Solnit shared some important guidance … she opens her letter with this,

I want to say to all the climate strikers today: thank you… for being un- reasonable.
Your actions matter, and your power will be felt.
Today you are the force of possibility.

***

At the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, we are blessed to be in relationship with partners who imagine what is possible. It is this fundamental principle that I believe is needed, for the sake of a world that reflects our commitment to peace, and justice.

I am grateful for the opportunity to share stories of UUSC’s history, and the work we are doing, with our members and our grassroots partners around the globe, and with you.

***

UUSC has always depended on the support and vision of the UU community. And the values of UUSC are at the center of our congregations.

More than a hundred years ago, Lewis Fisher, dean of the Ryder Divinity School in Chicago, famously said, “Universalists are often asked to tell where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all… we move.”

I have the honor to travel around the country visiting UU congregations, and each UU community is so unique. The elements of the service, the configuration of the space, the ambiance; all very different from each other.

However, there is one thing that solidly connects us. At every single gathering, there is a chalice, lit to begin our time of reflection.

It is the chalice itself, the very thing that binds UUs together, that calls us to the work of resisting oppressive systems, such as racism, sexism, and fascism, promoting human rights for all people, and caring for the earth we share.

***

Our chalice was not always the symbol of the Unitarian and Universalist faiths. In 1940, Reverend Charles Rhind Joy was sent by the newly created Unitarian Service Committee, to Lisbon, to aid refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. Dr. Joy worked with Hans Deutsch, an Austrian refugee and artist, to create documents with an official seal to match other travel papers. That seal was the flaming chalice.

It was at this same time when Waitstill and Martha Sharp, were also sent to Europe by the Service Committee-and from these efforts, UUSC was born. If you are interested in learning more about our founding and the Sharps, the terrific Ken Burns documentary, Defying the Nazis, will be shown in this congregation on Wednesday at 6 PM!

***

So, the thing that binds Unitarian Universalists together –the chalice– was founded on our commitment to human rights. Since the founding of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, we have been committed to supporting the work of liberation, even when, and maybe especially when, it involves making trouble for the powers that would deny anyone’s full humanity.

***

UUSC now works with more 30,000 members and over 50 grassroots partners in 20 countries. We galvanize our members to advance Climate Justice, Emergency Response, and the rights of displaced people.

The key to our success is our very dedicated membership and working in close partnership with locally led groups. We invest in these grassroots groups to help them implement their own plans for relief. UUSC engages in the work of human rights through what we call “radical trust.”

Our mission affirms the inherent dignity of all people. We are often the first funder of these partner groups, helping them launch movements for justice and to grow into mighty forces for good.

UUSC partners consistently and stubbornly claim their power and reject the notion that there is little we can do. We are committed to standing with them and helping them achieve their goals-our shared goals.

***

How can we use the power of possibility to imagine action that can lead to different and better futures?

UUSC’s grassroots partners see a better future. Getting to know their work offers us a chance to see new possibilities. Through them, we reach beyond ourselves, to marshal our efforts and resources, to create a new world.

Let’s learn a bit more about the important ways we are all advancing justice:

With our migrant justice work, for example, UUSC focuses on three aspects of the crisis people are experiencing. First on supporting grassroots organizations working so people can remain safely at home, in Honduras and Nicaragua and Guatemala. And providing safety to people migrating along the trails through Mexico, and finally, access to asylum here in the United States.

One of the ways we are supporting access to asylum is in partnership with UU congregations, and other progressive faith communities, to provide support to the congregations as they sponsor and accompany asylum seekers. We are also doing similar work to support trans folks in the United States through the Pink Haven Network, helping them to relocate and resettle in safety and community.

Recently, in another area of work, 27 Pacific Islands Students worked with UUSC to form a group fighting Climate Change. They took their vision from a theoretical law school project to the floor of the United Nations General Assembly, where it was adopted by unanimous consent. UUSC was their first funder and, we were able to connect them with even larger funders, so that they could become a force for indigenous communities across the globe.

In Haiti, we have launched an emergency response fund to support our partners and people facing extreme violence and immediate threats to their lives. We do this by building upon the deep relationships we have established in the country over the last decade. This work at its core is all about relationships.

UUSC partners cannot deny the devastating systems of oppression that order so much of our world. Yet with courage and imagination, they resist.

In this work, we see possibility and courage, in our partners and with UUs across the country. And I love the way that our being a small organization makes BIG, important things possible.

***

A few weeks ago, I returned from a trip to Poland where we visited with partners who are supporting refugees from Ukraine.

One after the other, I found each of our partners, as I always do, to be immensely inspiring and dedicated to their cause.

One group, Toward Dialogue is working with Romani people in Eastern Europe, including Roma refugees from Ukraine, a largely ignored population. The Alliance for Black Justice Poland is a team that fights against the racism that is rampant in Eastern Europe and, among many NGO’s.

We are working with groups to support refugees and combat human trafficking. Martynka is the only group in Poland that exists specifically to protect refugee women from gender-based violence. And sadly, the need is great.

I am humbled by the brilliance and compassion of our partners. And they are so grateful to us and to you, and those who support UUSC. Margo from Toward Dialogue, told us that UUSC is different. We listen, our support is flexible, unrestricted, and long-term.

And I hear this again and again. From UUSC partners all over the world. They tell us that UUSC works differently. Ours is a better model, one that works. All of us together, we are creating possibilities. We are lighting sparks of hope that burst into fire of commitment and justice.

***

In rejecting the notion that there is no other way, and little we can do, aid workers in Poland, the Pacific Students, grassroots groups in Burma, feminist farmers in Nicaragua, water defenders in Honduras, democracy activists in Haiti, are recreating a world where all may flourish and thrive.

It is not always easy to see what is possible.

BUT, what our partners have shared with us, provides me with the hope that we can, and we, in fact, do effect change. Here are just a few more examples from what I have heard from them: Like,

Ana Lorena from Mexico City. She is working to reunite lost and displaced people, along the multiple migrant trails that runs through Mexico to the United States, who said that, together, “We are putting Justice on the Move.”
And Joseph from the South Pacific, who works with indigenous groups fighting to save their countries and cultures from the ravages of climate change, he boldly declares that “We are not drowning, we are fighting.”
Jasmin and Marissa, of LEGIS in Macedonia are supporting refugees from North Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. They shared that where larger aid agencies swoop in and absorb available resources and staff, their relationship with UUSC has transformed the organization, making it stronger so they can aid more refugees and save more lives.
Kasia from Poland, she works at the Association for Women’s Rights. Kasia said that she remains hopeful because she knows that where there is injustice, good people will organize.
And Juan Antonio, from Honduras – he is one of my favorites. Juan Antonio is a quiet, sweet man, defending human rights defenders from corrupt corporate and government officials who are stealing land and resources, and committing crimes with absolute impunity, exasperating the migration crisis. His life is constantly under threat. He has been wrongfully detained multiple times, and his friends and coworkers have been murdered. Yet he insists that “Hope is the act of defiance I commit each day.”

As a staff member of UUSC, it is one of my great privileges to travel to meet these partners and learn about their life-saving work. It is also my privilege to visit congregations, to thank folks in person for their social justice efforts.

I know this congregation is doing so much good both locally and globally. I am grateful to you for standing with UUSC. Though, I am hoping that more of you will join our ranks. A member of this congregation has offered to match donations of new or renewed supporters, up to $2,000!

A gift of any size will make you a member-and all gifts make a difference. To those of you who are supporting UUSC, I thank you.

Whether you are a current member or not, I want you all to be confident that this organization is doing great things in the name of Unitarian Universalism, and that you are a part of that.

The struggle for justice is real. But if you are ever tempted by despair, please remember UUSC and our partners. And know that we can all resist injustice, by joining together.

Together, we are a force of possibility. Thank you.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

We have a calling in this world:

We are called to honor diversity,
to respect differences with dignity,
and to challange those who would forbit it.

We are people of a wide path.

Let us abide in affection
and go our way in peace.

– Jean M Rowe

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

Searching for Asherah

May 13, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
May 12, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Did you know that God had a “wife”? Her name was Asherah and stories of this old Hebrew Goddess remain in the Bibles of today. On this Mother’s Day, let us reclaim the story of the Queen of Heaven.

Chalice Lighting

Blessed is the dark, in which our dreams stir and are revealed.
Blessed is the dark of earth, where seeds come to life.
Blessed are the depths of the ocean where no light shimmers:
the womb of all earthly life.
Blessed is the light into which we awake,
the light that sparkles on the waters: that calls the tree forth from the seed, and calls the shadow forth from the tree.
Blessed are we as we move through darkness and through light.

Call to Worship

THERE IS ROOM FOR YOU HERE
Mary Edes

If God is your strength and companion
and prayer the means of centering your thoughts,
There is room for you here.
If the teachings of the Buddha give you clarity and calm in the midst of human striving,
There is room for you here
If Gaia’s seasonal rhythms lead you best through the myriad steps of Life’s great dance.
There is room for you here.
If the still mysterious capacity and power of the Mind, stirs your imagination and quickens your pulse,
There is room for you here.
Rest now, beside that spring, wherever it is for you
And let your attention go to the small places inside or out in the great wide world –
places or people in need of healing or for which your heart is filled with thanksgiving,
And in that spirit, let us be silent together for a time.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

REMEMBER
(excerpt) by Joy Harjo

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.

Centering

by the Rev. Victoria Safford

What if there were a universe, a cosmos, which began in shining blackness, out of nothing, out of fire, out of a single, silent breath, and into it came billions and billions of stars, stars beyond imagining, and near one of them a world, a blue-green world so beautiful that learned clergymen could not even speak about it cogently, and brilliant scientists, with their physics, their mathematics, their empirical, impressionistic musing, in trying to describe it, would begin to sound like poets?

What if there were a universe in which a world was born out of a smallish star, and into that world (at some point) flew red-winged blackbirds, and into it swam sperm whales, and into it bloomed crocuses, and into it blew wind to lift the tiniest hairs on naked arms in spring, and into it at some point grew onions, out of soil, and in went Mt. Everest and also the coyote we’ve spotted in the woods about a mile from here, just after sunrise on these mornings when the moon is full? (The very scent of him makes his brother, our dog, insane with fear and joy and ancient inbred memory.) Into that world came animals and elements and plants, and imagination, the mind and the mind’s eye. If such a universe existed and you noticed it, what would you do? What song would come out of your mouth, what prayer, what praises, what sacred offering, what whirling dance, what religion and what reverential gesture would you make to greet that world, every single day that you were in it?

We begin our candlelighting time with a communal ritual, honoring our most ancient of human ancestors and milestones …

Ardi 4.4 mya – Ardipithecus Ramidus (most complete early hominid skeleton, about 110 pounds, 3’11”, likely bipedal on ground, quadrupedal in trees, diet of fruit and nuts)

Lucy 3.2 million years ago – Australopithecus Afarensis

Over 2 million years ago – genus Homo emerges, the earliest hominins, use of stone tools begins (homo habilis)

Control of fire by humans, 1.5 million years ago (homo erectus)

Earliest evidence of homo sapiens outside of Africa, 210,000 years ago (Greece)

Mitochondrial Eve, 150,000 years ago

Earliest evidence for agriculture, now at 23,000 years ago (Sea of Galilee); certainly by 12,000 years ago

Biblical Eve: mythic story of leaving the Garden of Eden (out of Africa); transition to agriculture; transition to hidden menses and monogamy

Miriam 1200ish years ago

Our individual mothers: I am Michelle, the daughter of Nancy, who is the daughter of Eleanor, who is the daughter of Henrietta, who is the daughter of Eleanor, who is the daughter of Martha and I light this candle for all the mothers of my line.

I now invite you to light candles honoring your own lines of descent, or whatever it is you need to honor during this time.

Sermon

Once, early on a drizzly Saturday morning, I went to see the Dali Llama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. As I sat in this gigantic outdoor football stadium, he said: Think about this:

Everyone of us here, some ten thousand of us, has a mother. And he paused for a moment, allowing that knowledge to sink into our very beings. A hush fell over the stadium, so that in the silence, I could almost hear the thoughts of others, and I certainly felt the sense of amazement, as we took in this knowledge – that we are all connected to each other in such a fundamental way. It’s such a simple fact, isn’t it? We were all, each and everyone of us, born of a woman. And, I’d guess, it’s a fact most of us take for granted.

It wasn’t always so; this taking for granted of new life. Disconnection from our bodies and disconnection from nature is a rather modern phenomenon. Today, in this country, most of us were born in a hospital- in a sterile environment; with quick and easy access to life-saving drugs, equipment, and procedures; with quick and easy access to the miracle of medical technology.

For the millennia before the advent of modern medicine, we were born, that is our human ancestors were born – in the grasses of the savannah, within the confines of caves, under the protection of thatched roofs. Our survival, and the survival of our mothers, was always in question. For our survival, we relied on the wisdom of the women who had gone before, on the oral traditions that had been passed down from generation to generation, on the medicinal value of plants and herbs growing nearby. And – we relied on the Goddess.

We relied on the Goddess. Throughout ancient times and ancient cultures, it was the Goddess who was revered. Archaeological evidence from Palestine of the 13th and 14th centuries BCE in the form of clay figurines, with their emphasis on the elements of human fertility and survival, tells us that our earliest religious impulse, as humans, was to worship the Goddess. This makes sense to me – for as people we were intimately tied to the cycles and rhythms of nature, of the earth. We knew life and death, we knew the seasons of the year, we knew seedtime and harvest – in a way most of us, today, cannot and do not know. And we, that is our human ancestors, made the connection between human sexuality and reproduction and the implantation of seeds in Mother Earth, for our very survival depended on both.

Today, we celebrate Mother’s Day. Mothers all over the country will be blessed with brunch, courted with cards, favored with flowers, and showered with small gifts of time and treasure. Joy and good humor abound, such as was sent in this email chain, when 2nd graders were asked questions about the relationships between mothers and God. Here is a sampling of just a few of them: Why did God make mothers? She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is. How did God make mothers? Magic plus superpowers plus a lot of stirring. And finally, what ingredients are mothers made of? Clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

Of course, Mother’s Day is not only joy, good humor, and celebration. On this day, children mourn the deaths of their mothers, mothers mourn the deaths of their children, and some children grieve the loss of the mothers they wish they had had or never knew.

When the Dali Llama spoke to that stadium full of people, reminding us of our common origin from our mothers, I do not know if he was aware of the approaching Mother’s Day holiday here in the United States or not. He taught of the importance of a mother’s touch, of a nurturing touch, in the first few months of human life; of its essential function in brain development. And he spoke of his own mother, telling stories from his childhood. He told us that his mother was a person of great kindness and compassion and he spoke of being spoiled by her. During the earliest time of his life, in the first two years, his mother carried him about on her shoulders just about everywhere she went. He said that when he wanted her to go this way, he tugged on this ear, and she went this way. And he said when he wanted her to go that way, he tugged on that ear, and she went that way. But sometimes, sometimes … she wouldn’t do as he wished, and he tugged on both of her ears like this.

Yes, this story is both funny and cute, and for that reason alone, it is one of my favorites. Without fail, I smile each time I remember him telling this story. To me, though, the wonder of this teaching is its humility; and the brilliance of this teaching is its universality. For all are not mothers, and many shall never be; but we are all children of mothers, we all were born of a woman, all- even Jesus, even Muhammed, even Buddha, even the Dali Llama. For this teaching gets at the heart of life, the cycles of life and death, or as the Dali Llama would say, birth and rebirth; for this is the universal connection of all human life.

Earlier, I spoke of the importance of the Goddess in early human religion; yet, our culture has developed in such a way that it is a male God who is most commonly worshiped. How did that happen? Where did the Goddess go? Did she simply disappear with the advent of monotheism? Almost, almost, but not quite … as we shall see, Biblical scholars and archaeologists have been busy rediscovering and reclaiming the Goddess of Ancient Israel.

In one of the most intriguing stories of the Hebrew Bible, God, who is very upset with the people of Israel, speaks to Jeremiah and says to him:

“As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.” (Jeremiah 7: 16-18)

Later in the story, after the first Temple had been destroyed and many of the Israelites were exiled to Babylonia; Jeremiah then speaks to a crowd of refugees who had fled Jerusalem, explaining that they cannot escape the wrath of God by fleeing to Egypt.

“Then all the men who were aware that their wives had been making offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: ‘As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you. Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food, and prospered and saw no misfortune. But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.’ And the women said, ‘Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands’ being involved?'” (Jeremiah 44: 15-19)

There are many, many interpretations of these passages of Jeremiah. Some say that the Queen of Heaven was Ishtar or Astarte, a foreign goddess; others say she was Asherah. Some say that she was the consort of the LORD of Israel; others say that she simply represented the feminine side of God. I believe the strongest evidence supports the idea that the Queen of Heaven was Asherah, the wife of the old Hebrew God EI, whose worship flourished throughout Biblical times. William Dever, a professor of archaeology, believes that the writers of the Hebrew Bible in their monotheistic interpretation were actually battling a widespread and well-entrenched folk religion; a religion practiced not just by the women, but by the men as well; a religion which revered and worshiped the Queen of Heaven in all of her local manifestations; a religion which worshiped a Hebrew goddess, yes, a Hebrew goddess, through and through.

Eventually, as we all know, monotheism and a patriarchal God did win the battle for the religion of the people, or at least most people. Worship of the Goddess continued, albeit underground and in secret, and survived through millennia of persecution; finally re-emerging in the light of day, or perhaps, by the light of the moon, in the form of pagan and wiccan traditions practiced today by UUs and many others, the world over. Other vestiges remain as well. The goddess has survived in mystical Judaism as the Shekinah, the feminine aspect of God who dwells in this world; and the Goddess has survived in all of Judaism as the Sabbath bride. In Christianity, the Goddess has survived in the form of Mary, as the human mother of a divine God; a story long familiar to many pagan traditions.

Over the course of time, as human societies grew increasingly complex and more and more patriarchal; women lost much of their stories, much of their power, much of their access to the divine. Women lost their roles as prophets and priests. Women lost their Goddess.

As Unitarians and Universalists, we have our proud stories of reclaiming the place of women in ministry. Universalists lay claim to what was perhaps the first modern ordination of a woman to ministry; most likely, the Rev. Olympia Brown in the year 1863. Unitarians took their turn, a few years later, with the ordination of the Rev. Celia Burleigh.

Lest we be too proud of ourselves, it is also important to remember that the history of women in Unitarianism and Universalism was also sometimes problematic. Our triumphs were often more the exception than the rule. Despite our early ordination of women, many congregations rarely or never called a female minister. It wasn’t until 2017 that we elected a woman to the presidency of the Unitarian Universalist Association for the first time.

As we journey forward in our quest to regain the divine feminine, I am reminded of some old ideas about the unity of God. In Platonic, Hellenistic thought, society was organized in a hierarchy of those thought to be farthest away from God and those thought to be closest to and most like God (or the gods). Not surprisingly, slave women were on the bottom of the hierarchy. On the next rung up – slave men; on the next – free women; and on the next – free men. At the very top of the hierarchy, those thought to be most like God, were androgynous or gender-less people.

A similar line of thought continued in the writings of early Gnostic Christians found at Nag Hammadi. They believed that the end times would manifest as a return to the beginning times – to the time before humans were divided into male and female; when humans were simply one; one gender.

This yearning for unity, for the Goddess and the God, is reflected in these words by a UU minister, the Rev. Shirley Ann Ranck. She writes this as if from the perspective of Gomar, a devotee of Asherah, who is speaking to her husband Hosea, a prophet of YHWH, the LORD of Israel:

“Are our Gods so different? Must it be one or the other? Can we not dwell together in harmony? Is Asherah so different from the Gods of your ancestors, Hosea? … Were they so different? Elshaddai and Asherah? The Divinity of the Mountains and the God of the Air and Rain … Forgive me as I forgive you. Even as our Gods, the great YHWH and the great Asherah forgive us. May they live side by side. Although I know in my heart that may never be, I still pray for it …. And some day your world-transcending God will be reconciled with my world-renewing God, peace shall reign, and we shall be together again in the land.”

And so our search for Asherah continues. May we reclaim the Goddess while retaining the God. Amen and Blessed Be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

Our circle is open but unbroken,
May the Goddess and the God go with you,
and all the protection they provide.
All are one.
Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.
Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Interdependence Day

April 16, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Rev. Michelle LaGrave
April 14, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We often speak of interdependence in terms of the web of all life, from earth to all the plants and animals. But what does interdependence mean in the context of human life? How does interdependence impact human relationships and human 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

RENEWAL IN THE WEARY WORLD
Rev. Shari Woodbury

Welcome, all who seek renewal in a weary world.
Welcome, all who come with love and energy to share.
Welcome, to those who worry for the future.
Welcome, each one who is grateful for today.
Know that in this place, you are not alone.
In community we share our strength with one another
and we keep the flame of love burning bright.
Know that in this place, responsibility is shared.
Here, tradition holds us; ancestors shine a light from the past.
Here, the young lift their bright faces, and beckon us onward.
Take my hand, and we can go on together.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

SURVIVING THROUGH RECIPROCITY
Robin Wall Kimmerer
An excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass

Scientists are interested in how the marriage of alga and fungus occurs and so they’ve tried to identify the factors that induce two species to live as one. But when researchers put the two together in the laboratory and provide them with ideal conditions for both alga and fungus, they gave each other the cold shoulder and proceeded to live separate lives, in the same culture dish, like the most platonic of roommates. The scientists were puzzled and began to tinker with the habitat, altering one factor and then another, but still no lichen. It was only when they severely curtailed the resources, when they created harsh and stressful conditions, that the two would turn toward each other and begin to cooperate. Only with severe need did the hyphae curl around the alga; only when the alga was stressed did it welcome the advances.

When times are easy and there’s plenty to go around, individual species can go it alone. But when conditions are harsh and life is tenuous, it takes a team sworn to reciprocity to keep life going forward. In a world of scarcity, interconnection and mutual aid become critical for survival. So say the lichens.

Sermon

Text of Rev. Chris’ Homily is not available.

Rev. Michelle’s Homily

A little over 30 years ago, I headed off to Norlands Living History Center in Livermore, Maine. I had recently graduated from college with a double major in history and anthropology. I was especially interested in museum education and historical archaeology. And, after 17 years of schooling, I was especially interested in not spending most of my days reading, researching, and writing. So it was, that with great excitement and a little trepidation, I headed off to live and work on a historic farm.

While we had some hidden access to modern amenities like running water, real bathrooms, minimal heat, and electricity, we interns, of which I was one, lived as if the year was 1870 most of the time. As it was a working farm, chores needed to be done whether visitors were present, or not, and they were divided by gender. Much of the time, I was the only woman intern. I rose early, dressed in costume, walked the half mile uphill from the 1795 house in which I was living to the main area of the farm. I milked the cow, fed the chickens, collected eggs, pasteurized milk, made butter and cottage cheese, did all the cooking on a wood stove, weeded the garden, and so on. Fall was a time of harvesting, canning, making apple cider, bottling hard cider. Winter brought lots of snow and ice, horse-drawn sleigh rides and cutting 2 foot thick ice from the pond for the ice house. I taught school in the one room schoolhouse, danced in the barn on Saturday nights, made homemade ice cream, and finished off crazy quilts. I assisted with the births of piglets and a calf. And, when visitors weren’t around, I had the opportunity to try my hand at the men’s chores, too, like driving the team of oxen to pick rocks out of the fields before they were plowed and splitting wood and, yes, I learned there were some very practical reasons for the old fashioned division of labor.

Most of all, though, I was amazed at how much I had learned to do, how empowered I felt, how self-reliant I had become. I imagined that I could homestead, someday, if I wanted to. I was taken in by this feeling of independence.

And then I got sick, really sick, and I learned that feeling of independence was just a feeling; that in some ways all that selfreliance was just an illusion. I was the last of the interns to come down with whatever it was. I became feverish, weak, and beyond exhausted. The director of the museum had to take me home, down the hill to that 1795 house, get me inside, start the fire in the wood stove, and make sure I had plenty of wood right next to the stove. I fell into bed and slept, getting up only to put more wood in the fire or use that hidden bathroom.

And, at some point during that time, I began to feel better enough to think and I realized how totally and utterly dependent I was on other human beings. If I were all alone, I would not have been able to make it outside, through all the snow, over to the woodshed, and brought in all that wood. I would have frozen, become hypothermic.

Remember what I said last week? About how our lived experiences are the raw material, the scripture from which we build our theology? I was not yet a minister, had not yet been to seminary, or even graduate school and had not been raised UU. Though, as Callie Pratt, I attended an 1870 Universalist meetinghouse on Sundays, I had not yet been exposed to the Unitarian Universalism of the modern day, or its Principles, or its Values. I knew nothing of the interdependent web and was not familiar with the concept of interdependence. I was fascinated by these ideas of and feelings about independence and dependence; how both could be true at the same time. I did have a lot of survival skills and I did need other people in order to survive. I had experienced, in a very in-your-face kind of way, the concept, the reality of interdependence. Revelation was not sealed.

We humans are just like the algae and fungi of this morning’s reading; fairly independent when resources are plentiful, fairly dependent when resources are scarce, and totally interdependent – with each other, with the earth, and with all of life, all of the time.

And, we people of First UU Austin, are like the people in this morning’s story: a community in which each person has a role to play, each person is needed, and each person needs each other; it is all together that we become whole.

As Unitarian Universalists, we often place a high value on individuals hearing a call, finding a purpose, seeking fullfillment, and so on. Sometimes, we just want to be helpful, or useful. It can be easy for us to focus on these roles as something of a higher purpose. But today, and especially because it is New Member Sunday, I want to ask us, all of us, to focus on the opposite – on being helped, on allowing ourselves to be helped. (in appropriate ways, of course) I’d like us to think about how being served is of as much value as being of service. We all have different skills, different needs. We all go through times of joy and times of struggle. We all have times of service and times of being served. None of us should focus overly much on one over the other. Both are important. Balance is important. We are an interdependent community. With each other, with the earth, with all of life.

We all need one another, in all the ways, and all the time.

May it be so. Amen and Blessed Be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Closing Words

by the Rev. Peter Raible

We build on foundations we did not lay
We warm ourselves by fires we did not light
We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant
We drink from wells we did not dig
We profit from persons we did not know
This is as it should be.
Together we are more than anyone person could be.
Together we can build across the generations.
Together we can renew our hope and faith in the life that is yet to unfold.
Together we can heed the call to a ministry of care and justice.
We are ever bound in community.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Eclipse Sunday

April 8, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
April 7, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We live in a universe filled with awe and wonder. Join us as we celebrate the upcoming solar eclipse.

Chalice Lighting

ALL THE LIGHT IN THE HEAVENS
by Cynthia Landrum

For the wonder and inspiration we seek from sun, and stars, and all the lights of the heavens, we light this chalice.

Call to Worship

Come you who are wonder-filled,
Come you who are awe-stricken,
Come you who are filled with faith,
or riddled with doubt.
Whether you are scientist or mystic,
or both,
Whether you are one to seek answers.
or to embrace mystery,
Come.
All who are humbled by the stars, moons, and planets,
are welcome here.
Let us worship.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Anthem

All of today’s music is from Pink Floyd’s 1973 album “Dark side of the Moon”

“TIME” Lyrics
Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun
But it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way
But you’re older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I’d something more to say

Reading

Excerpt from “THE MOST DAZZLING ECLIPSE IN THE UNIVERSE”
by Adam Frank

Eclipses are not particularly rare in the universe. One occurs every time a planet, its orbiting moon, and its sun line up. Nearly every planet has a sun, and astronomers have reason to believe that many of them have moons, so shadows are bound to be cast on one world or another as the years pass.

But solar eclipses like the one that millions of Americans will watch on April 8 – in which a blood-red ring and shimmering corona emerge to surround a blackened sun – are a cosmic fluke. They’re an unlikely confluence of time, space, and planetary dynamics, the result of chance events that happened billions of years ago. And, as far as we know, Earth’s magnificent eclipses are unique in their frequency, an extraordinary case of habitual stellar spectacle. On April 8, anyone who watches in wonder as the moon silently glides over the sun will be witnessing the planetary version of a lightning strike.

Centering

This is the time in our service where we center ourselves together. We breathe together.

And breathing together, we sense one another’s loving presence.

Breathing in and breathing out, we follow our breath to a deeper place inside; a place of greater wisdom; a place where we are touched by awe and filled with wonder; a place where imagination reigns and inspiration rises; a place where a spark of the divine resides.

As we enter into this space, we call to mind the vastness of the universe. We travel outward in our imaginations, from the earth, moon, planets, and sun; from the Milky Way to other galaxies, to the universe itself. And as we do so, we find ourselves gaining a new perspective; our lives, our troubles, our joys become smaller and we are filled with wonder.

Now, let us enter into a time of sacred silence.

US AND THEM Lyrics
Pink Floyd

Us and them
And after all, we’re only ordinary men
Me and you
God only knows, it’s not what we would choose to do
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
The General sat, and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who Up and down
And in the end, it’s only round and round and round
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
The poster bearer cried
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside

Sermon

Here in Austin, Texas we are expecting a grand celestial event early tomorrow afternoon. Sun, moon, and our little arc of the planet Earth will align just so. The moon will block the sun, so that only its outer atmosphere, the corona, will be visible as a brilliant ring of fire that lights up what seems to be a nighttime sky. Over the course of a relatively short period of time, the moon will appear to glide toward, over, and past the moon so that we will experience something like a miniature sunset and sunrise.

At least that’s what the scientists, and their various fields of study, tell us to expect. Without them, we would have no way to prepare ourselves or our expectations ahead of time. We would experience tomorrow’s eclipse much like the ancient humans before us would have experienced it and like all the various animals, birds, and plants will experience it tomorrow. No time to declare a state of emergency, or stock up on food, or don special eyewear ahead of time. No way to come up with advance explanations of what is happening. Only the ability to simply experience.

How many of you have experienced a total eclipse of the sun before? (Not a partial eclipse, a total one.) For most of us, this will be a once in a lifetime experience and so it is difficult to predict what exactly we should expect. First of all, the weather forecast changes day by day and we are far from certain that here in Central Texas we’ll have the best viewing conditions.

Even more importantly, we Unitarian Universalists are an experiential people. We have an embodied theology. That means that we do not begin our theological thinking with received set of creeds, doctrines, dogmas, scripture or even teachings. Instead, we begin our theological thinking with our embodied experiences, with our lived experiences. In other words, our individual lives inform the creation of our theology, at least in the beginning. Our individual lives are kind of like our primary source material. We then go on to co-create our theology from the material of our lives, each other’s’ lives, our ancestors’ lives, various fields of study, and many received teachings and scriptural sources as well as with what we might refer to as the movement of the spirit; the holy, the divine, the sacred, the eternal, maybe even G_d hirself.

In still other words, revelation is not sealed. Which means, that in relation to tomorrow’s eclipse, we have a bit of a theological hiccup. If our theology is based in lived experience (revelation) and we haven’t yet had that lived experience, how can we fully know what we might think about it, theologically? We might have some ideas. We might have some guesses. We might have listened to stories about others’ experiences. We might be fully versed in the science of it all. But (most of us) haven’t actually had the experience yet, so what are we to make of tomorrow’s eclipse? How do we celebrate it?

I’d like to propose that today is kind of like the pre-game show, for all you sports fans out there. We’re excited. We’re making plans. We’re analyzing. We’re predicting. We’re discussing. We’re getting together with family or with friends. We’re putting safety precautions in place. We’re ready. Or we think we are, as best we can tell.

Imagine this scene: Three announcers behind the desk.

- Announcer 1 The first theologian or minister suggests the solar eclipse is all about alignment. That is getting ourselves in alignment with the universe as well as with people.

- Announcer 2 Another one suggests the spiritual meaning is all about seeing what cannot be normally seen. Usually the sun is so brilliant we cannot see all the atmospheric gasses emanating from the center.

Announcer 3 Another jumps in to suggest looking from another direction. The meaning of all this is about the moon covering the sun, about the darkness, about hiding what can normally be seen. Its like those troubling times in our lives, but then, the sun eventually comes out again. Just like in our lives we go through horrendous grief and loss and then at some point we eventually move into more joyful times.

But it’s also kind of like someone telling us we’re about to have an amazing, life-changing spiritual experience before the experience actually happens. Will it live up to all the hype? How could it? What if it doesn’t happen? What if I’m the only one who doesn’t feel this great sense of awe or wonder? What if I don’t live in the path of totality or can’t even get there? What if I’m stuck inside for some reason? FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a real thing, y’all.

So, I’d like to invite you to either turn toward someone close to you, preferably someone you don’t know very well, or take some time to quietly reflect on the following:

What expectations do you hold for tomorrow’s eclipse? And what do you hope to experience during the eclipse? What expectations do you hold for tomorrow’s eclipse? And what do you hope to experience during the eclipse?

That was part 1. Here come’s part two of our spiritual preparation for tomorrow. Think of a time when you have eagerly anticipated some special event, or class, or occasion. What happened? Was the experience better than you ever could have imagined? Did the experience match your expectations or fall short in some way?

I don’t really know what to expect during tomorrow’s eclipse. I do know that I have some plans in place, that I want to try to pay special attention to the way any animals or birds may react, and that I want to enjoy and celebrate the event, as best I can, for whatever it has to offer. I also know that I can rest in reassurance from my past lived experiences that no matter how many times I have anticipated some event or other with great eagerness and high expectations, I have always found something valuable in the experience that I can keep, even when it has differed greatly from my expectations.

As we build our theologies from our lived experiences, there are gems to be found everywhere; sometimes in the darkest, most hidden locations, sometimes in the light of day, sometimes in the most obvious of places, and sometimes in the most unlikely.

All we have to do is pick them up and treasure them for what they are. May your celebration be a treasure trove.

Amen and Blessed Be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

“Wisdom tells me I am nothing; Love tells me I am everything; and between the two my life flows.”

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

May tomorrow, and all your tomorrows, be filled with both Wisdom and Love, in nothingness and everythingness, held in that perfect, delicate, and intricate balance that calls us into wholeness and also keeps us humble. You have been blessed. Soon, go forth blessing all others as you yourselves have been blessed.

Amen, may it be so.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Easter Sunday 2024

April 1, 2024 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
and Rev. Michelle LaGrave
March 31, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In the gospel stories, the people who found Jesus’ tomb empty or experienced his resurrection felt uncertain. They wondered: What is happening? What does this all mean? What should I do? Like them, we too, have much to feel uncertain about – in our lives, in our church, and in the wider world, and we ask ourselves similar questions. What might happen if we decided to embrace these feelings and experiences of uncertainty? What gifts might we discover? What joy might we find?

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

On this joyous day, enter into this sanctuary with an alleluia in your heart, and a hosana on your lips. For though we know not what tomorrow, or even today, will bring, we know that we have each other and that makes us rich in spirit. So let us rejoice and be glad. Our hearts beat as one community. We share a great Joy and a great Love. Hallelujah and Amen.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

Mark 16:1-8 NRSVUE (New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)

16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.

2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.

3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”

4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.

5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.

7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Sermon

REV CHRIS’ HOMILY

It is so good to be back with you all this Easter Sunday.

In the Christian religious tradition, a major theme during the Easter holidays is death and resurrection.

As most of you know, my spouse, Wayne, entered home hospice care about three weeks ago.

So I have been thinking about this theme a lot.

By the way, Wayne is fine with me sharing our journey with you. And what rises up for me within the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the Christian gospels is that we can find a larger theme about faith rooted in a love powerful enough to embrace uncertainty and unknowing.

And, of course, death may be our greatest unknowing.

Within the time between Jesus’ death and when he rises again, the Gospels tell of a great unknowing.

Those days contain so much uncertainty. Has the promised Messiah really been vanquished? What are his disciples and followers to believe now?

What will become of the movement for justice and love he had begun?

Additionally, the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection differently. As far as the resurrection, among the many differences between the gospels are:

which folks first arrived at the tomb of Jesus,
whether or not they experienced a violent earthquake,
and how and to whom we experience Jesus reappearing after he has risen from the tomb.

These are just a very few of the differences.

I think that these variances between the gospels also create a sense of uncertainty, require a faith in the metaphorical messages they all present about about a divine love that lasts forever and focuses especially upon the disenfranchised and the downtrodden.

But perhaps we find this theme of uncertainty the most in the gospel of Mark. As you heard in our reading earlier, the original version of Mark ended without a scene in which Jesus reappeared at all.Instead, a mysterious young man in a white robe, presumably an angel, tells the women who have come to the tomb to anoint Jesus that he has risen, and that they are to tell his disciples that he will meet them in Galilee.

But they are terrified and flee the tomb, saying nothing to anyone.

Now, apparently that original version of Mark got terrible reviews, and I understand that Jesus was extremely miffed about not getting to make his final appearance.

So, later biblical scribes added not one but two happy endings, in which Jesus does reappear – several times – to many different people – and then ascends to right hand of God, and they all live happily ever after, proclaiming the good news.

Personally, I like the original ending of Mark much better. Because it is filled with uncertainty and unknowing, just like life is.

Those of you who saw my message to the congregation earlier this week know how much uncertainty Wayne and I are living with on a day-to-day basis.

This church has shown such resilience through so much uncertainty, from surviving through the stay at home days of the pandemic; to the retirement of a much loved minister due to serious health issues; to a time of much transition and unknowing between called ministers.

Any now this, with me and mine.

And yet, I think the real message we can find in the original Mark and in the broader themes of Easter is about how love not only sustains us through uncertainty and loss, it can help us find new life and new creative possibilities out of the unknowing.

I think this is the true essence of having faith. The very word faith implies uncertainty. I believe, in fact, that faith without uncertainty becomes dogma and fundamentalism.

True faith is when, even out of our state of unknowing, we invest ourselves in trusting that love survives all, continuously giving rise to rebirth and renewal.

When we engage in a great love like Wayne and I have for almost 34 years; a great love for all humanity and all that is;

or a love for an art or music;
or a love for searching out new discoveries in physics
or computer sciences or the endless mysterious of consciousness and the human mind;
or perhaps some combination of many or all of these and more.

When we build a love as great as this, we have already created the resurrection.

Happy Easter, my Beloveds.

Together, may love lead us to rebirth and renewal, time and time agaIn.

REV MICHELLE’S HOMILY:

Back in the day (I love that I get to say this now) which was about 17 years ago, I was in seminary, going through a process that we call ministerial formation. That means that I was growing into a minister and there were a lot of people involved in helping me to grow, especially a lot of professors and ministers and even some psychologists, as well as the other seminarians. Back then, we had to pass through 2 committees to become a UU minister, to get fellowshipped. That meant going before a group of about 8 or so people and getting questioned on a variety of things.

The first committee was called the Regional Subcommittee and that one happened early in our formation. Once we passed through the Regional Subcommittee, we became candidates for ministry. It was a big and exciting step in the process of becoming a minister. So at the end of my first year of seminary, it was with a great deal of excitement and apprehension that I went before the New England Regional Subcommittee. And guess what happened?

I didn’t pass. I didn’t pass. After my interview, they called me into the room, and picture this -I sat before a room filled with about 8 people and they told me what they thought I needed to do to become a minister. They said a lot of things that day, including that they thought my therapist wasn’t doing me any good and they thought I needed to get a new one so that I could better integrate my life experiences into my ministerial formation. I was shocked that the committee could and would be so bold to say such things to me. And I was devastated. I had felt my call to ministry to clearly and strongly that I was heartbroken to hear that I had more work to do and needed to come back to the committee next year.

I left the building and sat on a bench on Boston Common and wept. I was grief-stricken. I felt the committee had an image in mind of who I needed to grow into but I couldn’t see that image and I didn’t know how I could grow into something that I couldn’t see or even imagine. I was filled with uncertainty.

In some ways all of our lives are filled with uncertainty. We never know for sure what will happen tomorrow, later today, or even a few minutes from now. Most of the time, we don’t think about all of that uncertainty all that much. And there are other times when are lives seem filled with uncertainty. Maybe even rich with uncertainty. Or pregnant with uncertainty. Like the seeds we planted this morning and many of you will plant later today or this week, we don’t always know what it is we are growing, exactly. We might have an idea, like that we are growing some kind of plant, or growing as a human, or growing into a better minister but we don’t always know what that looks like, exactly.

These times, these potentially rich times of uncertainty, are times when we can grow as individuals, as families, as a church community – if we embrace them. If we embrace uncertainty and allow the growth, as difficult as it may be, to happen, we can find joy, even in the midst of grief.

So, back to that scene on the Boston Common. What happened? Well, I did a lot of thinking, a lot of grieving, and a lot of processing. I thought about all the ministers I knew who I respected and admired, affirmed to myself that my call was clear and true, and decided to embrace the process, even though I didn’t understand it and couldn’t see the outcome. I did all of the things that the committee asked of me: I took an extended unit of CPE, clinical pastoral education, I continued my seminary studies, I took a job working in a church as an interim ORE, Director of Religious Education, I took care of myself – and got diagnosed with and treated for an autoimmune disorder, and … I got a new therapist, who worked with me by using the enneagram as a model for personal and spiritual growth.

And guess what? The committee was right. I had needed a new therapist. I had needed all the things they prescribed. As horrible and devastating and grief-filled as the experience was, it was also a time of great growth, great joy, and great love. And I am filled with gratitude for the committee, and the person, who with great courage, spoke the truth, the hard truth, to me, in Love. So, the next year, I returned to the Regional Subcommittee and passed into candidate status, and later went to see the MFC, the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, with passed with the highest ranking. My experience with the MFC was the complete opposite of my experience with the Regional Subcommittee – instead of being devastated, I was filled with joy.

There have been, and are, and will continue to be times in my life that are rich with uncertainty, as is true of all of you, and of this church. This church has been filled with uncertainty for several years now. You went through a pandemic and began recovering, only to find that your senior minister needed to retire for devastating medical reasons. You’ve called and settled one co-lead minister, only to hear that his husband has now entered hospice. And you’re approaching the end of your second year with interim ministry. This church is rich with uncertainty and grief. It is also pregnant with great joy and new life. May you, may we, all embrace the gift of uncertainty and in the midst of grief give birth to new energy, new joy, new hope, new life, and new love. For you are held in Love, not only by me, and Rev. Chris, but also a wider community of ministers and UU congregations. Have faith, dear ones, have faith. As Julian of Norwich had said and Rev. Meg has sung many times – all will be well, all manner of things shall be well.

Amen and Blessed Be.

Extinguishing the Chalice

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

Benediction

In times of uncertainty, and grief may you always be open to
New Growth
New Joy
New Love

Go in peace, knowing that you are Loved.

Amen and Blessed Be

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