2024 Pride Sunday

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

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

Reproductive Justice for All

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

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

2024 Flower Communion

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

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

The Force of Possibility

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

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

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

Interdependence Day

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

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

Eclipse Sunday

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

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

Easter Sunday 2024

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


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

Wonder Woman, Fake News, Lie Detectors, and Reasons for Hope

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

During this “Great Turning,” it can sometimes feel more like the world is turning away from truth and justice rather than toward it. How, during these often troubling times, might we sustain hope?


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 GREAT TEACHERS IN LIFE
Jason Cook

We seekers are on a quest:
A quest to discover truth and meaning.
Sometimes we think we’ve found it-
Wrapped up, glimmering with newness
Straight off the intellectual assembly line.
All the answers right here for us
And others, if they’d only listen.
But truth has a way of coming in disguise,
Sometimes wearing rags and sometimes finery,
But so often cloaked from our immediate sight.
And sometimes, that which we have rejected,
That which we have let go of
Or decided was only for others
But not us-Can be our teacher.
Let our time of worship be an acknowledgment
Of the never ending journey toward truth and meaning,
And our appreciation of those we learn from along the way.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE WEB OF LIFE
Robert T Weston

There is a living web that runs through us
To all the universe
Linking us each with each and through all life
On to the distant stars.
Each knows a little corner of the world, and lives
As if this were his all.
We no more see the farther reaches of the threads
Than we see of the future, yet they’re there.
Touch but one thread, no matter which;
The thoughtful eye may trace to distant lands
Its firm continuing strand, yet lose its filaments as they reach out,
But find at last it coming back to him from whom it led.
We move as in a fog, aware of self
But only dimly conscious of the rest
As they are close to us in sight or feeling.
New objects loom up for a time, fade in and out;
Then, sometimes, as we look on unawares, the fog lifts
And there’s the web in shimmering beauty,
Reaching past all horizons. We catch our breath;
Stretch out our eager hands, and then
In comes the fog again, and we go on,
Feeling a little foolish, doubting what we had seen.
The hands were right. The web is real.
Our folly is that we so soon forget.

Sermon

Several years ago, pre-pandemic, and with great excitement, I went to see the film Wonder Woman. The movie is about the famous comic strip superhero who has been around for generations. Without giving away the plot, just in case you haven’t seen it yet or aren’t overly familiar with the comic strip, I’ll share the story of her origins as portrayed in the movie. Wonder Woman is an Amazon; yes, those Amazons we have heard about from Greek mythology. Her mother is a Queen; they live on Paradise Island with only other women warriors; and she is the only child amongst them. Wonder Woman plays the role of hero and her male sidekick, the damsel in distress.

Though many have long thought the Amazons to be only the stuff of legend; more recently archaeologists have confirmed their existence. Or, perhaps more accurately, archaeologists have demonstrated the historical existence of the women around whom this famous mythology has arisen. They were Scythian warriors; groupings of nomadic people who lived on the steppes of Eurasia and rode horses millennia ago, perhaps as early as the Bronze Age. They lived in extended family groupings of women, men and children. About a third of the warriors were female. And their territory included one island off the coast of the Black Sea. Earlier, when the skeletons of these women warriors were first discovered, they were presumed to be men due to the “masculine” nature of the grave goods associated with them. It is only with more recent DNA testing that archaeologists realized they were, indeed, actually women warriors.

There is quite a bit of mythology associated with these women, much of which deserves what we call a “content warning” these days. They were said to have lived only with other women. They were said to have killed their men and male children or maimed or castrated the young boys. They were said to have been lesbians. They were said to have had only one breast, having cut the other off to better shoot their bows and arrows while riding atop their horses. They were also known to have been heavily tattooed and fond of using marijuana.

Much of this mythology arose with the Greeks who seemed to both fear and admire these women warriors. Some of it was based in what we would call fact. The rest of it in rumor and ill-logic that might have gone something like this … obviously, no men would ever allow their women to be warriors, therefore they must live in groups of only women; since the women did not live with any men, they must have done something to the men -like kill them. Since the women did have children and women cannot procreate with each other, they must have found other ways to get pregnant, like visiting nearby societies were men did live; furthermore, since the women did have children and their offspring would surely be both female and male, the women must have done something with their male children -like kill or maim or castrate them. And so on.

All this goes to show, that we people of the 21st century are not the first victims of “fake news.” And if you haven’t figured it out already, the only scientifically verified facts, in the midst of all this fake news, are the parts about smoking pot and getting lots of tattoos. Hmm, that kind of sounds like a prehistoric version of Austin.

Today we live in a post-truth era filled with alternative facts, disinformation, and fake news, not to mention AI chatbots pretending to be customer service reps and, even worse, deep fakes. Some of this is not all that new. Before there was fake news there were hoaxes and propaganda; some of it even published in what today we would consider more reputable publications. What is new, is the speed at which fake news travels; mostly due to social media, and the extremely high quality of deception; due to advancing technology.

Living in a post-truth era often feels somewhat surreal. This can be underscored when the practice of gaslighting is added to the dissemination of fake news. In the aftermath of the attack in Charlottesville a half dozen years ago, members of the alt-right circulated fake news stories claiming that the person who videotaped the car driving into the crowd was not there by coincidence, but “in fact” was there as a set-up from the Left to discredit the Neo-Nazis. Let me repeat that, the alt-right claimed that the person who videotaped the car driving into the crowd didn’t just happen to be there, but was intentionally planted, ahead of time, as a set-up from the Left to discredit the Neo-Nazis. It’s mind-blowing, isn’t it? And it’s intentional, but we’ll get to that in a little bit.

NPR did a news segment, a while back, on the problems science teachers are having teaching students, due to the prevalence of fake news stories that have come into circulation. For example, science teacher Nick Gurol says his students believe the earth is flat. Why? Because a basketball player named Kyrie Irving said so. No matter what the science teacher says, whether simply correcting the students or reasoning with them, they will not change their minds. They believe the earth is flat. Gurol says: “They think that I’m part of this larger conspiracy of being a round-Earther.” In other NPR segments describing what teachers are doing to effectively combat fake news, one teacher shared that a student asked the question “What is news?” Other students asked a NPR reporter if NPR traffics in fake news.

And here is the crux of the matter, the paradox – Sam Harris, a well-known atheist and neuroscientist puts it this way:

“If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?”

These are questions that don’t have easy answers. 

 

So how did we get here? – to this place where facts are not to be believed and science is considered a conspiracy?

Well, there are people who study this stuff. Robert Proctor and David Dunning are two of the more well-known figures. And … this field of study has a name: agnotology.

AGNOTOLOGY is commonly defined as the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt i.e. ignorance or doubt purposefully created and spread by people, typically those in power.

I say “typically” because with the advent of social media, those who are otherwise lacking in power, now also have the ability to spread ignorance and doubt. Actually, anyone can do this through the power of social media – either intentionally or as unwitting prey to more powerful interests. 

 

Janna Rose and Marcos Barros, two professors at the Grenoble School of Management, describe it this way:

“Agnotology is more than the study of what we don’t know; it’s also the study of why we are not supposed to know it. One of its more important aspects is revealing how people, usually powerful ones, use ignorance as a strategic tool to hide or divert attention from societal problems in which they have a vested interest.”

 

Examples include the tobacco industry spreading doubt about the negative health consequences of smoking as well as conservative think tanks spreading controversy about the science of climate change.

So how can agnotology help us to better understand this world we find ourselves living in? Julian Birkinshaw, of the London Business School Review cautions us that in attempting to understand our current political climate “we shouldn’t mix up cause and effect: contempt for expert advice is what created the Trump bandwagon, not vice versa.” (as well as Brexit, if you live on the other side of the pond) I’ll repeat that: contempt for expert advice causes bandwagons. Bandwagons, or their leaders, don’t cause contempt for expert advice.

Birkinshaw tells us that there are two distinct trends that are shaping our understanding of the world.

    • The first is that humans are becoming stupider if stupider is measured relative to all the world’s collective knowledge. In other words, while our IQs have indeed risen a bit, they have not kept pace with the exponential growth in humankind’s collective knowledge. He says: “The gap between what each one of us knows and what the world knows is growing rapidly.”

 

  • The second trend Birkinshaw sees is that business and politics are growing more and more interdependent. And the effects of one on the other can be rather unpredictable. The global economy is a complex system and he says: “It is a strange paradox of our times: the more we connect, the harder it is for us to predict.”

 

Over these past eight or so years, I have engaged in so many, many conversations with people about what is going on in our world. Feelings of cynicism, pessimism, hopelessness, and despair about the state of the world seem to be on the rise. People are struggling to understand how we have come to be in this place; this place where, among other things, vast numbers of people vote to put in office someone who is in direct opposition to their own self-interest. Julian Birkinshaw has the best explanation I have seen about how and why this happens so I will take the time to share an extended quote. Here goes:

 

“Put these two points together: as individuals, we are struggling to understand the present, and it is getting hard to predict the future. The result is a form of cognitive dissonance. As thoughtful beings, we like to be in control, but increasingly we cannot. So how do we resolve this dissonance? We fall back on belief – on our own intuition.

 

This is a scary point: it is human nature to jump straight to a judgment, often on the basis of the slenderest of facts and, paradoxically, the more complex and uncertain the issue, the more we tend to trust our intuition … If asked, [a complex question like] do you support leaving the European Union, the reasoning-based part of your brain goes into meltdown, and the intuitive part takes over.

While this tendency to leap to judgment has always existed, it has become a bigger problem as individuals become (relatively) ignorant and less able to see what’s coming next. Technology then exacerbates the problem, with our Facebook and Twitter feeds … [spreading news] that [is] often completely devoid of facts. And smart politicians are quick to exploit the trend, tapping into our intuition and subconscious beliefs, rather than boring us with hard evidence. Emotion beats logic in the art of persuasion – a point that the Brexiteers and the Trump campaign understood very well.”

 

Emotions beat logic. Our brains go into meltdown. Our intuition takes over. We fall back on belief. I’ll repeat that:

When faced with increasingly complex issues … Emotions beat logic. Our brains go into meltdown. Our intuition takes over. We fall back on belief. We are literally overwhelmed with information. And we become susceptible to fake news, alternative facts, and disinformation; which in turn, overwhelms us. Robert Proctor sums it up best: “We live in a world of radical ignorance, and the marvel is that any kind of truth cuts through the noise.”

In one of the earlier scenes of the movie Wonder Woman; our superhero discovers that her new sidekick, the first male she has ever seen, has been deceiving her. She then wonders aloud how she would know if he is deceiving her again, now. Her solution? She wraps her lasso around him and squeezes the truth right out. Unlike Wonder Woman, none of us has a Lasso of Truth, but there are things we can do to protect ourselves and our children from a vast ocean of deception among them making use of websites like Snopes, PolitiFact, and FactCheck.

Like the man on the beach tossing starfish back into the ocean, one by one by one, we face daunting odds. It would be easy for anyone of us to lose hope in this post-truth era. But like him, and the writer who joined him, we can keep hope alive by making a difference for this one: by debunking this myth, by teaching this child to think critically, by stopping the spread of this piece of fake news and by not tolerating the intolerant, by not tolerating this hate group, by not tolerating this act of intimidation, by not tolerating this symbol of racist ideology.

It is time, in this post-truth era, to live into the paradoxes of contemporary life and stop wasting energy railing against them … verbally. I don’t mean don’t do anything. I mean stop spending energy railing against what is. You can get into a lot of Buddhism here, actually … with non-attachment and attachment. When you’re attached to the idea that logic should rule and it doesn’t, you suffer … right? So, non-attachment is what I’m talking about.

And we can look for reasons to hope. We can find reasons for hope in the North where folks are helping to pay for families who are relocating from states like ours where trans kids are not safe. They’re bringing their kids to other places. They’re helping to support people and find houses and things like that. We can be symbols of hope to each other.

It is all one thing, not many separate things. It is both and not A but B. It is the individual starfish and the ocean. It’s just that we usually see each piece of the web separately, except in those precious few moments when the fog rolls away and our hands reach for the truth.

May we see truth more clearly and hold it more dearly. Amen and Blessed Be.

Closing Words

CHERISH YOUR DOUBTS
by the Rev. Dr. Michael A Schuler

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the servant of truth. Question your convictions, for beliefs too tightly held strangle the mind and its natural wisdom.

Suspect all certitudes, for the world whirls on-nothing abides. Yet in our inner rooms full of doubt, inquiry and suspicion, let a corner be reserved for trust.

For without trust there is no space for communities to gather or for friendships to be forged.

Indeed, this is the small corner where we connect-and reconnect-with each other.

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

NOW MAY THE LOVE OF TRUTH
by Jane Mauldin

Now may the love of truth guide you, the warmth of love hold you, and the spirit of peace bless you, this day and in the days to come.


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

Affect Theology

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
February 25, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Did you know that Unitarian Universalism has its very own theology? It is called Affect Theology and was created by the Rev. Dr. Thandeka, a Unitarian Universalist minister and theologian. This umbrella theology is an embodied theology that when well understood and applied can help UUs of multiple theological and philosophical perspectives to lead lives of wholeness and fulfillment.


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 LONGING FOR SOMETHING MORE
by Gretchen Haley

Every little thing that breaks your heart
Is welcome here
We”ll make a space for it
Give it its due time
and praise
for the wanting it represents
the longing for something more,
some healing hope that remains
not
yet

We promise no magic no making it all better
But offer only this circle of trust
This human community
that remembers
Though imperfectly
that sings and prays
though sometimes
awkwardly

This gathering that loves,
though not yet enough
We’re still practicing
After all,
still learning,
still in need of help
and partners
Still becoming able
to receive
all this beauty and all these gifts
we each bring

Come, let us worship together.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Story for All Ages

Once upon a time, in a magical space called Howson Hall, two Unitarian Universalists sat down together. They had just come out of the worship service. Rev. Michelle had been preaching about affect thea/ology.

“Hey, Lucas, how are you? You look like you might be feeling a little down,” said Sheldon.

“Well, I guess I kind of am, said Lucas. That sermon got me thinking about my job and I’m realizing how unhappy I am with my career.”

“What do you do?” said Sheldon.

“I sell really fancy cars, like this one. I want to help people and I like seeing how happy they are when they drive away in their new car, but I don’t love what I do in the same way the other salespeople do. They get really excited talking about engine specs and trim packages, even when they’re on break. They wave their arms around a lot when they’re talking about cars. One of them accidentally smacked me in the face the other day because she was so excited about the new car model that just arrived on the lot and she didn’t even notice I was standing next to her. But I just get so stressed out with the pressure to sell. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and my stomach doing flip flops. I think I might need a new career.”

“Mmm, said Sheldon. That might be a good thing to think about. It sounds like even though you want to help people in a fun way, your job is just stressing you out a bit too much.”

“Thanks for listening, Sheldon. I am going to think about it some more. You’re a great friend. I’m so glad we met here.”

“Me too, Lucas.”

A few weeks later, the two friends met up once again after worship. This time, out in the courtyard.

“Hey, Lucas, how’s it going? said Sheldon.”

“Well, a little better, I guess. I left my job selling cars and now I’m trying to sell houses. I have a friend, Tanisha, who is a great realtor. Their whole face lights up with excitement when they talk about their career. I thought that selling houses would be fun, plus I thought it would feel good to help people find their home sweet home.”

“But it’s not working out that way?” said Sheldon.

“No, I’ve been job shadowing Tanisha. They still love what they do, but I’m just finding it all kind of … odd. Some of these houses just creep me out. I can feel shivers going down my spine and I get goosebumps on my arms.

“Hmm, said Sheldon. I know helping others is important to you, but maybe its not people you’re meant to help.”

“What do you mean?” said Lucas

“Well, I notice you’re wearing a shirt with dogs all over it. You seem to wear that one a lot. And I noticed you only eat the vegetarian dishes at the church potlucks. Plus, you got really excited when that tiger, India, was it?, was on the loose in Houston. You said something about wishing you could volunteer at that animal sanctuary he went to. I know you love animals a lot. Maybe you could think about helping animals instead of people?”

“Thanks, Sheldon, I will do some thinking on that. You’re the best.”

And so Lucas did just that. He went home and he thought about all that Sheldon said and about how much he loves animals and how much he loves being helpful and he made a decision. Lucas went back to school and became a vet tech. Now, he works with, and helps, the animals he loves every day as well as their human parents.

A couple of months later, the two friends met up once again, this time at a pool party at Sheldon’s house.

“Lucas, I can’t believe how much happier and more relaxed you look these days,” said Sheldon.

“Yes, I am, Sheldon,” said Lucas. “That’s in part, thanks to you. I love my new career. I’m eager to go to work each morning and find out what the day will bring and I feel so fulfilled at the end of my day. I really appreciate all the listening you did and the way you helped me put things together in a deeper way. You really are a great friend.”

“So, how are things with you, Sheldon?”

Reading

Excerpted from Braver/Wiser
by Dr. Takiyah Nur Amin

When I used to work with Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism {BLUU)-doing workshops or meeting people in UU congregations-inevitably a very well-meaning white person would ask, “Who’s the Black Emerson?” or “Who’s the Black Thoreau?”

This question is wrong; icky for so many reasons. One of the tenets of white supremacy culture is the prioritization of the written word, and not understanding that if you want to discover the “evidence” of Unitarianism, Universalism, or Unitarian Universalism in the lives of Black folks, it’s not always in written essays-because historically, we’ve had different trajectories: different levels of care and resources and access that would enable us to create something like that.

If you’re seeking sacred Black “text” in our tradition, you have to examine the way our Black ancestors lived. You have to seek out the Black folks who were in Unitarian and Universalist or UU congregations, and the work that they were doing in community-whether it was suffrage, or trying to educate Black children, or their working towards social action or civil access. Our “text” is embodied in the lives of people like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Joseph Jordan, David Eaton, and countless others.

One of the things I love about this tradition is that our faith is covenantal and not confessional-meaning that to some degree, our tradition cares little about what you stand up and say you believe. The evidence of your Unitarian Universalism is embodied in the depth of your relationships: how do you live in relationship to self and other? {I don’t just mean human other: to the plants, to the animals, to the stars … ) The proof is in the pudding, for UUs. It’s not about what you have to say. How are you living?

Sermon

The words washed over me like the first drizzle on a parched land:

“Though you have broken your vows a thousand times;
Though you have broken your vows a thousand times;
Though you have broken your vows a thousand times … “

The rhythmic repetition of the congregation singing in unison began to settle into my body and nourish a place in my spirit I hadn’t known was thirsty. The verse continued, washing in and out like the tide, while other voices sang from above:

“Come, come, whoever you are,
wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
ours is no caravan of despair,
come, yet again, come.”

And … 

“Though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
come, yet again, come.”

 

A sense of sweetness settled upon my heart and I allowed the words to soothe me. I was sitting in the pew of the UU Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, celebrating the Soulful Sundown service. The minister, the Rev. Aaron Payson, had invited us to join in singing the missing line from Rumi’s poem; the one which does not appear in our hymnal.

I think I understand why Rumi’s verse about breaking vows does not appear in our hymnal. It has to do with the tendency of Unitarian Universalism, as a whole, to avoid all things relating to sin, confession, and forgiveness, often to our own detriment. Many, and perhaps most, of us have arrived at Unitarian Universalism after coming out of another religious tradition. And all too often, we arrive here having suffered spiritual harm from a theological language of sin, confession, and forgiveness that was used to incite feelings of guilt or shame. And so, all too often, we arrive here wanting to avoid these theological terms. Yet, this self-protective action can also come at a price. We can close ourselves down, refuse to hear or try to understand what scares us, and so reject the good and beneficial which may be mixed in and amongst the harmful.

So, while we UUs tend to avoid topics like confession or brokenness or guilt or forgiveness; sometimes, though, I think we get it right. The worship leaders at the Soulful Sundown service I went to that time got it right. I needed to hear that message that night: though I have broken my vows a thousand times, as I surely have done, I still must come. I still must approach. I still must join with. I still must return, over and over and over, again. Theirs was a message proclaiming that I belong, here, in this faith community, even in my brokenness.

Theirs was a message promising that I will be seen, here, in this, my beloved Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, for all of who I am, even the less than perfect parts, and that I will be accepted not in spite of, but because of my imperfections. Theirs was a message of hope, acceptance, and strength, not one of shame or guilt, and this is a message we all need to hear. So, I’ll repeat it in slightly different words. To truly and completely affirm ourselves and each other, we must accept those feelings of brokenness; we must accept that there are parts ourselves and each other that feel out of alignment with who we understand ourselves to be and who we hope to become. We must begin by accepting our imperfection. Only from there, will we be able to seek wholeness in any truly meaningful way.

Which brings me to … UU Theology and an introduction of Thandeka. I first met the Reverend Dr. Thandeka on Star Island a UUA/UCC camp and conference center off the coast of New Hampshire, well over a decade ago. She was then a professor at one of our UU seminaries: Meadville-Lombard Theological School; and she is a Unitarian Universalist theologian. Morning after morning, just after breakfast, for an entire week, I listened to Thandeka lecture on a system of thought she termed affect theology. She traced its evolution from Friedrich Schleiermacher through George de Benneville and William Ellery Channing and up to her own refined application to contemporary Unitarian Universalism.

Affect theology is an incredibly complex system of thought, based on neurobiology, psychology, child development, anthropology, and theology. It is also an umbrella theology: a single theology that has the inherent ability to overarch or encompass all of our individual theologies and philosophies of life. Yes, all of them – whether you consider yourself to be a UU humanist, a UU Jew, a UU Buddhist, a UU Christian, a UU atheist, a UU Pagan, or a plain-old UU; there is a home for you within the umbrella of affect theology. It is a theology to which we all belong.

In hearing Thandeka speak over the course of that week, I was both fascinated intellectually and unsettled emotionally. Somehow, I felt like my body knew the truth of her words in a way I could not articulate. Her words sounded … vaguely familiar. Her words almost … haunted me. So, ever the researcher I am, once I returned from the Island, I decided to compare what I had learned about affect theology to my very recently written credo statement. It was with that reading and in that moment that I became a believer.

I became a believer. And ever since, affect theology has been formational in the way that I think theologically, in the way that I grow spiritually, and in the ways that I teach and minister. So, what is affect theology all about and how does it work? As we prepare to explore the 4 components of affect theology, let’s imagine ourselves embarking on a journey; a journey on which we search together for truth and meaning; a journey on which we encourage one another to spiritual growth; a journey toward belonging; a journey toward wholeness; a lifelong journey.

We begin this journey in the base of our brains. This is where our brains receive both external and internal sensory input. We see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Here, we begin to be aware that our hearts are racing, that our bodies are feeling pain, that our skin is sweating, that our muscles are relaxing. To hearken back to my Soulful Sundown experience … I heard the music: a familiar melody with a new descant weaving in and out and among notes well loved; I felt the vibrations of dozens of others singing along with me; I saw candles lit and flickering in a darkened and beautiful sanctuary. Our bodily experiences are foundational in the way we understand and live out our faith lives. Affect theology is an embodied theology.

Next, and second, on our journey, we move a bit farther up our brain stems to where our emotional responses occur. First, we experienced sensory input within our bodies. Now, we experience emotions which we feel about these same sensory experiences. I felt emotions about my worship experience – not all of which were name-able, but include feelings of comfort, relief, nourishment, reassurance, and gratitude.

Next, and third, on our journey, we move even farther up our brains and into the neocortex, the most recently evolved portion of our brains, the center of thinking, reasoning, and logic. Here it is that we think about our bodily, sensory experiences and the emotions we have felt about those experiences. Here it is that we do the work of reflection and of meaning-making. I made sense of and came to an intellectual understanding of my Soulful Sundown worship experience by thinking through that experience. I thought about the contrasts between Unitarian Universalism and Sufism in the importance each religion places on making and keeping vows and what it might mean to break those same vows. I thought about the making, keeping, and breaking of vows and how that might relate to traditional Jewish and Christian theological concepts of sin, confession, and forgiveness. And I thought about the relative lack of those same traditional theological concepts within Unitarian Universalism and what that might mean for us as a faith tradition.

Finally, with the next, and fourth, step on our journey, we move to the last component of affect theology, which is our actions. That is to say, we have sensory experiences, emotions we feel about those experiences, thoughts we think about what we experience and feel, and actions which we undertake as we interact with the world, as we live our lives. I act by admitting my mistakes, apologizing, asking for forgiveness, and changing my future behavior. I act by writing and delivering this sermon. Sensory input. Emotions. Thoughts. Actions.

According to Thandeka, it is only when these four components:

  • sensory input
  • emotions
  • thoughts
  • actions

are in alignment; it is only then, that we feel whole, that we feel fulfilled. When these four components of our lives are out of alignment, when our thoughts don’t match our actions and our feelings don’t match our thoughts, we feel broken, disaffected, fragmented, disembodied. 

 

Affect theology is a path to leading a life of healing and wholeness and of fulfillment; a journey which we can all choose to take, regardless of our individual belief systems. In some ways, it is simple to understand (sensory input, emotions, thoughts, actions, all in alignment) but it is not actually easy to do and will never be finally or fully accomplished by anyone.

And so it is, that I believe in being fully present to those who I am with, yet I sometimes find myself feeling impatient or becoming lost in thought. And so it is, that I believe in making careful, considered, and ethical choices when shopping, yet I sometimes find myself choosing the easiest or least expensive option rather than the most ethical one.

For each piece we snap into place, there are more to be sorted, as we continually put together the puzzle we call life and journey onward. That is why we need each other – to help sort the puzzle pieces, to support and encourage one another, to call each other back into alignment. Just as Lucas’ friend Sheldon did for him, and as Lucas will do for Sheldon.

Take note, that means I ask you to call me back into alignment with myself. That’s the beauty, the absolute beauty, at the center of this theology – I ask you, my atheist friend, to call me back into alignment with my panentheistic self, not your atheistic self. And you, you ask your Christian friend to call you back into alignment with your Pagan self. No one’s individual theology or philosophy need threaten or take away from another’s. I need you all to hear this, because the survival of our faith tradition depends on this: no one’s theology of philosophy of life need threaten another’s. What we need is each other. What we need is a faith community to which we can belong.

In other words, as individuals, incorporating affect theology into our understanding of ourselves as whole, or even holy, beings is certainly … hmm, adequate for living a moral and ethical life.

We can use this system of thought to see a way toward becoming more ethically consistent in the totality of our individual being. We can use this system of thought in a spiritual practice of self-examination and self-culture. But the concept of working on ourselves by ourselves is no longer enough. It never really was. We are intimately connected on the interdependent web of life. We can only truly and fully understand ourselves in relationship to others. A change in any one of us is felt by all. We are all one.

I’ll say a little more about this, using Thandeka’s own words. In writing about a need for a language of reverence, she defines the symbol of salvation within the context of affect theology in this way:

“Human salvation is thus a corporate affair. We were not conceived, born, or individuated alone. If others did not exist (including the wider world of nature and the universe) we would not be here. We could not be here. A basic eco-biological law of nature is that organisms cannot flourish without an environment that nurtures, sustains, and enhances their developmental continuity through life-affirming relationships. Our human affections are thus deeply private and utterly social. We feel the world upon us and within us. The world stirs our affections. We are a pulse of its life.”

 

We Unitarian Universalists have covenanted together as congregations in relationship to other congregations of Unitarian Universalists, to encourage and support one another in our mutual quests for spiritual growth, as we each engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. And so, when the search for truth and meaning becomes difficult, when we find ourselves living too much in our heads, or too much in our hearts, we can remind each other of our need for balance; our need for alignment. Body, heart, mind, will, spirit, all are essential on our path to healing and wholeness.

After all, we are all disaffected, disembodied, or broken, in some way. This is the natural order of life and the result of our all-tao-human experiences. If we were not, we would be inhumanly perfect, and no one is. Thandeka reminds us: “We were not broken alone and we cannot heal alone. It takes a religious community to heal a broken souL” We need each other.

As Unitarian Universalists, we have long struggled in finding a foundation for our liberal theology. Lewis B. Fisher said back in 1921: “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.” This captures something quintessentially true about liberal theology, that our theology lives and grows and changes. Our theology is constantly in the process of becoming. Thandeka demonstrates that with affect theology, our search for a foundation may be over.

The foundation of affect theology actually rests outside of theology, and within the field of science. Human experience is understood through the lens of neurobiology. As people of liberal faith, we are not likely to ever plant our feet in a cement-like faith, but here we can find a place to rest, a place to find the ground beneath our bodies, a place to stop our seemingly endless wandering. Here, within the warm embrace of affect theology, we can move forward together, with purpose, as we join with each other on a life-long journey of becoming and of belonging.

May it be so.

Benediction

There is a promise, inherent within affect thea/ology, that we might one day come more fully into our own; a promise reflected in this poem by Derek Walcott; a promise that life itself is, indeed, poetry.

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.


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

2024 Animal Blessing Service

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Rev. Michelle LaGrave
February 4, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Join us for an all ages service to bless the beloved animal companions in your lives. All friendly, well-behaved creatures young, old, great and small, furry and scaly are invited to this cherished annual tradition.


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

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

– Job 12, 7-10

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE SOULS OF ANIMALS
by Rev. Gary Kowalski

Sense a solitude you can never fully enter into or understand.

Be aware that this is a being who has known hardships and hurts you can never imagine. This is a being who has known moments of wildness and innocence that you can never share.

Yet this is a creature who has desires like you. It walks the same ground and breathes the same air. It feels pain and enjoys its senses – the dazzling warmth of the sun, the cooling shade of the forests, the refreshing taste of pure water – as you do.

And in this we are all kin.

In that kinship, all life exists. Through that kinship, we can find wholeness. Out of that kinship we can draw wisdom and understanding for the healing of our common home.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Animal Blessing

For all the ways you enliven my days
I bless you.

For moments of oxytocin induced bliss
I bless you.

For knowing how I am feeling, often before I do
I bless you.

For so many moments of joy and laughter
I bless you.

For entrusting me with providing you with care and nourishment
I bless you.

For providing me with care and comfort
I bless you.

For helping me to find my center during times when I have struggled
I bless you.

For all the many ways you bless me more than I ever could you.
I bless you. I bless you. I bless you.

Benediction

“BENEDICTION FOR A PET BLESSING”
by Rev. Chris Jimmerson

Show joy when you first see your loved ones after being apart.

Except in the most dire of situations, retract your claws (unless it is all in good, playful fun).

Knock something off the shelf every once in a while, it’s fun and can open up new possibilities.

Delight in simple joys. Play a lot.

Never try to persuade humans to be reasonable.

Purr loudly or wag your whole body when you’re happy.

Sometimes a good howl or some hissing can help a lot, just avoid biting, which can get you in lots of trouble. Nap just for the pleasure of it.

Comfort others: accept comfort when you are able. Love freely, but never lose yourself in doing so.

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


SERMON INDEX

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

PODCASTS

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

A Church for All

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
January 28, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

How do we build an accessible church where more and more people will feel included and welcome? We’ll share some stories of what it means to live a disabled life and how we can begin to dismantle ableism within ourselves and our 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

“TODAY WE CELEBRATE A DREAM AWAKENING”
by the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth M. Strong

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

“MEANT FOR LOVE AND BEAUTY”
by Julian Jamaica Soto

I need you to know
that there is nothing
wrong with you, if you
find the world congealed
and unwieldy. You were
never meant to serve money,
to give loyalty to unprincipled
power, to spend your joy
frantically soothing yourself
in order to tend wounds
of being constantly
dehumanized. I need you
to know that your sense
of injury and anger is not
overdeveloped. You are meant
for love and beauty. You belong
where you are known and
where your future is not just a
resource, but a promise, which
you begin to fulfill by being
unmistakably, irrevocably
yourself.

-you are not wrong.

Sermon

Together, we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the beloved community. This is the mission of this church and this church is the most mission-driven congregation I have ever had the joy to minister. Together, we build beloved community and the love which is centered in the word beloved is a serious love, it is a liberating love.

Today, I’m going to talk about the liberation of a people we don’t talk much about. People with disabilities. All kinds of disabilities because we come in all kinds of bodies. Some bodies think differently, some bodies process pain differently, some bodies regulate emotion differently, some bodies work differently, some bodies see and hear and move differently. Differently how? Differently from “the norm”, differently from the way human bodies “are supposed” to be. As if there were a single magical template from which any deviation is a problem.

Before I go any further, I’d like to make a note about language. As with any group of people, disabled folx don’t all agree on language, or anything else for that matter. Just like able-bodied people don’t all agree on language or anything else for that matter. And language tends to change over time. So, I’ll say right up front that I choose to use the words disabled and disability. I think these words, disabled and disability, are the best way to get at the heart of what ableism is and why we need to do something about it. In other words, because ableism is still largely unacknowledged, talking about disability and disability justice helps to acknowledge the very existence of ableism. Maybe someday, when we live in a more just world, I’ll feel differently, and I will find a better way to talk about the experience of living in my human body.

Some folx experience themselves as disabled their whole lives. For me, I didn’t encounter any serious issues until I was close to 40 years old. I was serving a church in central Massachusetts in a hilly little village, and by little, I mean a population of around 1200 people. This is relevant because in order to have a Memorial Day parade it was all hands on deck. Including all clergy hands. Yes, the clergy were asked to march, as our own little unit, right behind the Fire Department. All 3 of us. And since it was a hilly and fairly long parade route, it was also how I measured the onset of my disability. I went from marching the entire route one Memorial Day, no problem, to not being able to march at all the next.

Perhaps even more difficult than adjusting to the chronic pain was the process of coming into a new identity, that of a disabled person. Using a cane, getting a disability tag for my car, climbing into a mobility scooter for the first time, deciding whether I wanted to use the word disabled to describe myself, all were big milestones, as was getting matched with my first service dog for mobility, Bella. So, too, were the obstacles I began to encounter and my realization of inaccessible and ableist the world was, even more milestones.

Ableism flies so far under the radar that it’s worth a moment to define it. Simply put, ableism is the unspoken and un-thought-about assumption that able bodies are normal bodies. As a society, we build houses, apartments, offices, stores, libraries, hospitals, rest rooms, and more with this assumption. We design classrooms and museums and other educational or learning opportunities with this assumption. We create transportation systems, cars, airplanes, and even bike racks with this assumption. And, yes, we design our churches and our worship services this way, too.

Which is why there is a new ministry team here at First UU. A few months ago, I was approached by Vicki Almstrum who wanted to start an accessibility ministry team. While some accessibility features were put in place a long time ago, especially in the newer sections of the building – think hearing loops, a ramp up into the pulpit, wireless receivers to better hear the service, door openers outside the sanctuary doors, support grips in the restrooms, braille signs and hymnals, and so on, she knew that accessibility is about much more than seeing, hearing, and using a wheelchair. The new team was approved, and she got to work reaching out to people who might be interested in joining the AMT – Accessibility Ministry Team. Their first official debut was at the Connections Fair in December where many of you submitted suggestions for ways that accessibility can be improved here.

Beginning today, you’ll start to see some changes taking place with both the worship service and the website, the two areas the team has identified to prioritize. Because accessibility covers such a wide range of needs and in so many different areas of congregational life, there is going to be a lot to learn, and I include myself in that. So, to share your ideas for accessibility or your kind, caring, and covenantally constructive feedback, the Accessibility Ministry Team has a new email address. You can send your thoughts to Access@austinuu.org.

Like I said, there is a lot to learn to do accessibility well and it will take lots and lots of practice, on all of our parts, including those of us who are disabled because we still need to learn about each other’s needs, which are different from own. This is all work that can and should be joyful. Before I talk a little bit more about what we’re doing, I’d like to say some more about why. And it’s all about that liberating love embedded right there in our mission statement.

Those of you with a Christian background will likely remember these words of Paul’s and the rest of you will probably find them familiar, too, as they are so well known. In First Corinthians, which is actually a letter Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about how to be together as a church, he said: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud … ” and so on. Setting aside issues with Biblical translation for now, I’d like to share excerpts from something the Rev. Tess Baumberger wrote, which is based on this passage from First Corinthians. Here it is:

 

Love is kind with people but impatient with injustice.
Love is assertive and respectful.
Love listens to the anger of those who experience oppressIon
Without responding, without defending,
Without interrupting, without explaining.
It listens with compassion, seeking always to understand …
Love is willing to examine itself,
Its thoughts, actions, and unmeditated bias.
It recognizes one’s power to harm, or to be part of systems of harm
With or without awareness, but once aware it can only intend
To make amends, to right the wrongs, to change the systems…
Love is willing always to change,
Always to learn, always to heal.
Love rejoices in truth and in equity.
There is no limit to love’s steady presence,
Or it’s holding us, gently but insistently, to what is right.

 

This love she speaks of is a liberating love, a love that sets people free from oppression and systems of oppression. This love is a love that does what is right because it is right. And this love is a love that doesn’t give up because doing what is right is difficult to do. This love is willing to learn and willing to practice. This love is willing to change and to grow. This love is a joyful love. This love is a liberating love.

What does this kind of liberating love mean in action? Sometimes, it looks like new slides, in a different font, in a larger size, and a higher contrast color ratio. Sometimes, it sounds like purchasing more wireless receivers because hearing aid technology has changed. Sometimes, it smells like fragrance free soap, shampoo, and lotion. Sometimes, it speaks in American Sign Language. Sometimes, it means the time of silence isn’t actually silent. Sometimes, it means that the preacher’s image is left up on the sanctuary’s monitors. Sometimes, it means that people move around a lot during worship. Sometimes, it means that there’s a dog on the chancel. Sometimes, it means that the preacher speaks in plain language. Sometimes, it means that we get a little repetitive. (It’s okay to laugh at that one. I did it on purpose and I’m kind of making fun at myself.)

Now, I’m guessing that some of those ways of demonstrating a liberating kind of love that I just named feel easier or more challenging than other ways. Take the time of silence, for one. Silence is an age-old spiritual practice that does have many benefits for the inner spiritual life. And, it is challenging, stressful, and sometimes even impossible for some disabled folx to do. Never mind the non-disabled folx. Babies cry. Children fidget. And elders, well … a number of years ago, a noise audit was done for congregational worship. You know what they found? That the elders made more decibels of sound than the infants and children.

I’m guessing, though, that the most challenging way of becoming more accessible to more people for Unitarian Universalists is the use of plain language. We UUs (as a whole, not just this church) tend to pride ourselves on the number of college and graduate level degrees we hold, though it’s important to note , that’s not all of us.We are, on the whole, an educated bunch and we tend to intellectualize a lot. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. I can “geek out” on occasion along with the best of them. And people who have graduate level vocabulary tend to use it, without even thinking, most of the time.

Here’s an example. My mom, who holds a graduate degree, and gave me permission to share this story with all of y’all, spent much of her professional life teaching in special education. I often substitute taught in her classroom or volunteer chaperoned on class trips. The students, who were high school or college aged, sometimes couldn’t read or read at a 2nd or 3rd grade level.

So, one time, I was helping to chaperone a class trip and a student who also had mobility challenges was struggling to walk up a paved path. My mom said to her “Don’t worry, it’s only a steep incline.”

My eyes grew wide and I struggled to not burst out laughing immediately. Later on, she heard it from me though. “What was up with that steep incline, Mom? It’s a hill. It was a hill.” We are a family who love to laugh at ourselves, and that joke lived on for a long, long time.

My point in sharing that story is that while plain language is more accessible, it can be hard to change the way we talk, especially in worship and during the sermon. It does not mean, though, that our sermons and our services have to be any less deep or any less based on complex thea/ological ideas. Let’s face it, we’re only getting so far in less than twenty minutes anyway.

There are many stories I can tell about what it is like to live with a disability that causes chronic pain and limits my mobility. And many tips I can give about how to interact, or not interact with and near me.

A few quick ones, all of which have actually happened to me:
1. Never call someone else’s service dog to you while they trying to go down the stairs.
2. Never park your car or truck or other vehicle with one end hanging over the sidewalk.
3. Never cut off someone who is using a mobility scooter in a store, either with your body, your child, or your cart. Those things don’t have brakes, people!
4. Never glare at someone parking in a disabled spot. Many disabilities are invisible or nearly so. And, yes, it was amusing to see how quickly faces changed once Bella hopped out.

And one longer, and more humorous story.

One year, I went Christmas shopping for my spouse, Micah, in one of those dollar-type stores. I was looking for things to fill his stocking and I was there with my service dog, Bella, a beautiful black lab, whose jobs included picking up things I dropped on the floor, getting my cane when it was out of reach, and so on. I was stopped by the rack of crossword puzzles and word searches, wearing my glasses, and flipping through the pages of one of the books, when all of a sudden I heard two older men say, from partway across the store:
“She can’t help us. She’s blind.”
So, I turned in to find out:
(a) if they were really talking about me. (They were) and:
(b) what they were up to.

It turned out that someone, a niece apparently, had sent them to the store in search of some feminine products, without clear instructions, and they didn’t know what they were doing. I decided not to volunteer to help, curious to “see” what would happen. They did wind up getting some help, from a store clerk. My only regret was, they were not around when I went out to the parking lot, got in my car, and drove away.

The moral of the story is – we never know what anyone person’s needs or abilities are without actually getting to know them. We can learn how to put some good practices in place, but in the end, we are all different, and yet we are all the same. We are all human and we are all worthy.

Amen and Blessed Be

Benediction

As you go forth, in the many ways you go forth,
May your hearts and minds be open to the many ways of being in this world,
May your senses be open to new encounters, May the ways you experience the world,
lead you to transform this world,
all for the better.

Amen and Blessed Be.


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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love in the Hard Places

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

Sometimes love feels easy, like when we think about our love for a beloved pet or family member. Other times, love feels hard, like when we encounter someone who feels difficult to love or when we are loving someone through a hard place. What happens when we lay sentimentality to the side and think about Love theologically or as a spiritual value?


Chalice Lighting

by Amy Carol Webb

We light this flame
For the art of sacred unknowing.
Humbled by all that we cannot fathom in this time,
We come into the presence of what we do know,
Perhaps the only thing we can ever know:
That Love is now and forever
The only answer to everything
And everyone
In every moment.

Call to Worship

YOU ARE BELOVED, AND YOU ARE WELCOME HERE
by Joan Javier-Duval

Whether tears have fallen from your eyes this past week or gleeful laughter has spilled out of your smiling mouth

You are beloved, and you are welcome here

Whether you are feeling brave or broken-hearted, defiant or defeated, fearsome or fearful

You are beloved, and you are welcome here

Whether you have untold stories buried deep inside or stories that have been forced beyond the edges of comfort

You are beloved, and you are welcome here

Whether you have made promises, broken promises, or are renewing your promises,

You are beloved, and you are welcome here

Whatever is on your heart, however it is with your soul in this moment

You are beloved, and you are welcome here

In this space of welcome and acceptance, commitment and re-commitment, of covenant & connection,

Let us worship together.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

GOD GAVE ME A WORD
by the Rev. Amy Petrie Shaw

I was talking with God the other day, ’cause we’re cool like that.
And God said “Hey, I want you to tell people something.”
And I was kinda busy, so I pretended like I didn’t hear.
And God poked me and said, “I’m not kidding. Pay attention,”
(’cause while we’re cool, we aren’t that cool
And I know when I have pushed it way too far.)
So I put down my coffee cup and I turned around.

And God said, “Let me hang a Word around your neck, so that Everyone can see it. And you better speak it when you’re out, ’cause I’ll know if you don’t.
And it will be heavy,
So heavy,
On your soul.”

And a Word was hung around my neck to take out to the people standing in the streets.
A Word was preached into my ear and laid into my mouth and burned into my Heart until all I could see was the shape of the Word and the Word was all.
And the Word was Love.

And God said “Now get out because
You don’t have all day, and that Word is gonna get heavier.
And you got some work yet to do.

So I’m taking my Word out into the world.

Love came down on this green earth.
Love came down and turned over the tables and set the world on its end
Love made it clear that it was the Word for the poor and the broken hearted. For the queer boi and the angry girl.
Love was the Word for late night hookers and the long haul truckers,
for the heroin junkie and the runaway cutters.

Love was the Word for all of the screwed up and pushed over and too tired and I can’t take no more.
Love was the Word for the HIV patient and the man with no papers.
Love was the Word for me and for you,
for the saints and the sinners and the scramblers in between.

Love came down and made a way
for there to be a way
and then
Love said “We are never going back.”

(he who has ears let him hear)

Love said we are all a part of something bigger and if you cannot rise with us, if you cannot Love with us
then you should get the Hell out of the way because
We aren’t going anywhere and you
are in the path.

(he who has ears let him hear)

Love came down for the World to know and
I’m holding out this Word so
even when you and God are just like that you can’t pretend you didn’t know.

I cannot put it down.

Not for a politician spewing hatred.
Not for a minister vomiting out bile in the costume of a saint.
Not for money or for country or for kin.

I’m holding my Word in my mouth
‘Cause the next time I see God I wanna be able to say “You gave me a
Word and I carried it just the way you asked.”

You gave it to me and I took it.
I showed it to everyone I met.

You gave it to me and I showed it to her and gher and ze and him.
I showed it to them and they and those over there.

I never put it down.
(I can never put it down).

I was talking with God the other day, ’cause we’re cool like that.
And God said “Hey, I want you to tell people something.”
And I was still kinda busy, so I pretended like I didn’t hear.
And God said, “I’m not kidding. Pay attention,”
(’cause while we’re cool, we aren’t that cool
And I know when I have pushed it way too far.)
So I put down my coffee cup and I turned around.

And then God gave me a Word.
And now I’ve given it to you.

Start moving.

Sermon

Rev. Michelle LaGrave’s Homily

Every so often, I offer a Question Box sermon. I did one with Rev. Chris shortly after I arrived here this past summer. That’s when instead of an already prepared sermon, the congregation is invited to ask questions of the minister. The scope of questions is pretty open, within appropriate bounds. They might cover anything from UU thea/ology to UU history to world religions to congregational life to personal getting-to-know you kinds of questions. As you might imagine, it can be a lot of fun. It can also be … well, risky, because you never know what someone might ask.

I offered one of these question box sermons several years ago at the church I was serving in Omaha. And, as you might guess, someone came up with a doozy of a question. Are you ready for it? “Why is life so darn hard?”

“Why is life so darn hard?” Well, I didn’t know then and I still don’t know. It just is. It just is.

What I can tell you is this. As Unitarian Universalists, we build our thea/ology from our life experiences, whatever they may be, including, especially including, the hard things. That’s what makes us different from so many faith traditions. Instead of receiving an inherited body of theology, or creed, or doctrine, or dogma, we build our own thea/ology. And the material we use in doing so is our life experiences.

So we go through life, experiencing all of the hard things for ourselves or witnessing our friends and families and neighbors and each other experiencing their hard things, living in and through those hard places. Illness, job loss, people who are mean or unfair or unkind, addiction, and recovery, divorce, loss of abilities, coming out, not making the team, mental health struggles, unwanted moves from one place or home to another, homelessness. There are so many, many hard things, hard places, and hard, or hardened, people.

What are we to do about all of this hardness? About life being so darn hard?

As Universalists, one answer is … Love! We love each other while we are in and as we go through the hard places. We listen to and witness each other’s stories, the ways in which we each live out our lives and then weave them into a whole cloth of meaning.

Our Universalist ancestors tell us that Love is God and God is Love. This has been my experience as well. I remember one night, when I was a child, and I was in a hard place, tearfully lying in bed when all of a sudden I felt like I was being enveloped by a large, warm, hug. I was completely wrapped up in this powerful feeling of being Loved. Completely, thoroughly, peacefully, and warmly Loved. It was an almost indescribable feeling, one I attributed to G-d.

As an adult, my understanding of this spiritual experience has expanded to thinking of this as some kind of collective unconsciousness, or quantum entanglement, or the universe. But in the end, whatever the exact cause or nature of this experience of being loved, thea/ologically speaking, calling it G-d, in the end, still works for me.

Now while none of us can, individually, match this all-encompassing feeling of being loved for someone else, we can aspire to live out our lives in Love – love for each other and love for the people who are easier to ignore than to love, especially when they are a stranger to us. Our tradition of humanism teaches us this.

Here’s a story, shared on social media by a chaplain named J.S. Park:

A patient was yelling at someone, then at me. I had a few options.

1) Call security.
2) Keep walking.
3) Go confront him.
4) Go find his nurse. (The RNs love this. But really. They don’t.)
5) Ask him what he needed.

You might have guessed I picked 5. Here’s what happened:

I got up as close to this patient as possible – now my patient an arm’s length. Just out of striking distance. I asked, “What do you need right now?” No kidding, his mouth hung open. He stared at my hair. Back to me.

“Hungry,” he said. “I’m hungry. But I mean, I need real food.”

“Okay,” I said. “.. do you have any dietary restrictions?”

“No sir, I don’t,” he said. “I am the opposite of dietary restrictions. I am dietarily open-minded.”

“How about a hamburger and fries?”

“For real? You for real? Can I get two of each?”

He told me his story. He went to the ED which he thought would be a quick trip, but it turned into a week. He said the hospital food reminded him of prison food. He didn’t mind the hospital. But he didn’t like it reminded him of prison. He had cried himself to sleep every night.

Normally I don’t buy food for patients. But hearing his story – what else could I do? I checked with the nurse.

“Got enough burgers for the floor?” she asked, only half joking.

I went to grab his food. He almost lunged at the bag. Finished a burger right in front of me.

 

And he told me between bites: “Chaplain, believe it or not, but I’ve stayed at the Ritz. And this right here is the best burger I’ve ever had in my life.”

“I believe you,” I told him.

“Thanks, chap. That’s all I wanted.”

This patient was in a hard place and his behavior was probably making it difficult for anyone to feel compassion for him. And yet, the solution to helping him out was easy. The chaplain listened. The chaplain heard him. The chaplain fed him. This is Love. This is Loving someone through a hard place.

Have you ever loved someone through a hard place? Has someone ever loved you through a hard place?

 


 

Rev. Chris Jimmerson’s Homily

My uncle Bobbie was so very lovable. And, my uncle Bobbie could be extremely hard to love sometimes. That’s not as much of a paradox as it might seem.

Bobbie was brilliant and funny and caring and was the first in my family to recognize and accept that I was gay.

I will always remember the practical jokes he played on more than one of us. I can still picture him standing in a comer at the edge of family gatherings, quietly throwing in hysterical commentary at the goings on. His jokes and comments though were affectionate – most often pointing out something he loved about us in a humorous way.

I grew up with uncle Bobbie as one of my parental figures. He was my mom’s brother, and they had always been close, so our family and his would get together often.

My brother and sister and I grew up almost as as siblings with our cousins, Bobbie’s three daughters. They lived just outside of New Orleans, so visiting them was always an adventure compared to the much more staid little Southeast Texas town where we lived.

Bobbie was also manic depressive, which got much worse as he aged. When he was at the depths of the worst of his depressive states, what had been humor could turn biting and hurtful.

At the height of his manic states, he could become delusional, like the time he attached a giant television antenna to the top of his van and wired it into the dashboard radio so he could pick up what God was sayIng.

He got to the point in his 40s and 50s that he could no longer work, and my grandparents had to take care of him. At times, when the psychological illness had him in its grasp though, he could be very ugly to them, even physically threatening sometimes.

Eventually though, with the right medications, he was able to stabilize enough that he could live on his own again, but with their continued support.

But, when he was only 55 years old, Bobbie and a woman he begun seeing drove to Louisiana for a night out together. On their way back, they were in a terrible car wreck, and both were killed.

I will always believe though that Bobbie made it as long as he did because of the love and care of my grandparents, my mom, and his daughters, and that with that care he might have made it even much longer were it not for that tragic accident.

We had loved him through some very hard places.

On the night after Bobbie’s funeral, his youngest daughter, my cousin, Jeannie, her husband, Steve and I spent the night at my mom’s house.

As I said, Jeannie and I grew up together. She is several years younger than me though, and because of that age difference, we had always been that sort of “family close” – you know, where you have great familiarity and affection for each other because of spending so much family time together, but you don’t actually know one another all that well?

That evening, we talked until late. We told stories of Bobbie. We laughed and cried and were vulnerable with each other and got to know each other much more deeply.

After that, Wayne and I began to visit Jeannie and Steve in New Orleans when we could, and they would visit with us where we lived in the Heights area of Houston.

So, when Steve took a job in the Houston area, they moved to the Heights too, just a few blocks away from our house.

I was there when their first child, Robbie, was born, and Wayne and I used to help take care of Robbie when he was an infant, babysitting him from time to time so they could get a night out together.

Out of that terribly difficult tragedy of love lost, a new, much deeper relationship also came into being because we had loved each other through the loss.

Well, Wayne and I ended up moving to Austin, and Jeannie and Steve moved back to New Orleans, and life and then the pandemic happened, so we haven’t been able to stay in touch in the way that we used too.

And yet, Jeannie and I talked recently to catch up and make promises to each other to do better about staying in touch, and the most amazing thing happened. As we spoke on the phone, it was as if we picked things up right where we had left off.

The laughter and love and vulnerability with each other was right there, just like it had been when we could be together often. Love crosses the hard places and the hard times and the long distances of time and space, if we just give it the opportunity.

I’m betting many of you have had similar experiences.

You’re probably familiar with Brene Brown, a research professor and the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the University of Houston School of Graduate Social work.

In her best-selling books, as well as her peer reviewed academic publishing, she often demonstrates that one of the ways that we become whole is through being vulnerable enough to express love even when it’s hard, to love even when we are finding others difficult to love sometimes.

She quotes Social psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm, who said, “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. King once said, “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. One who loves is a participant in the being of God.”

For me, theologically, we might express these ideas like this. There is a river of love that flows through the universe. This divine river, this eternally flowing process, pulls us toward more life-giving, loving, creative ways of being.

Sometimes we drift smoothly and easily in its currents. Sometimes, it feels as if raging rapids might pull us under. And yet always, we are also its tributaries.

We choose whether to add more love, strengthening its flow. We choose whether to create rapids that, rather than sweeping any of us under, instead carry us all toward a future of Beloved Community.

Even when it seems difficult, maybe especially when it is difficult, may we immerse ourselves into that river so that love may flow ever more powerfully.

Benediction

As the Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker says, there is an all-encompassing Love which has never broken faith with us and never will.

Through all of your days and all of your nights, may you feel held in the arms of an all-encompassing, all-embracing, and everlasting Love.

And in all of your comings and all of your goings, may you tap into this Love and use it to bless all others as you yourselves are now blessed.

Amen and Blessed Be


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

Are You a Player?

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

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

Play and playfulness are easily overlooked aspects of faith, development, and spirituality. Join us for a playful New Year’s service filled with Robert Fulghum readings.


Chalice Lighting

EXPLORING WHO WE ARE
by Melanie Davis, adapted

Under the right circumstances, playing around the fire is a delight -imagine being gathered round a firepit as the crackling flames invite us to sing, dance, and roast a marshmallow or two.

Our chalice also invites us to play, although with ideas rather than with marshmallows. The flame encourages us to explore who we are, who our neighbors are, and where we are on our spiritual journeys.

Today, we light this chalice in the spirit of play. Let us trust the light to guide us in this hour and in the days to come, finding joy along the way.

Call to Worship

ENTERING THE BRIGHT WORLD
by Shari Woodbury

Let us enter this sacred sanctuary
the way a soft infant enters the bright world:

squinting in wonder
holding to another
taking it all in.

Let us open all our senses
and let our synapses spark
one connection after another

as we make sense of the world
and find joy with each other
and follow the instinct to play.

Affirming Our Mission

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

First Reading

WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I DONE?
Robert Fulghum (excerpts)

PLAYER Definition: Persons with enough nimbleness of mind to accept a surprise invitation to jump into a quick game of imagination. People with a loosey-goosey sense of mischief. Players are also Laughers. And you can’t tell the Players by the way they appear on the outside.

Example: Here’s a uniformed city bus driver standing in the door of his vehicle, staring into the rain.

An invitation from me, passing by: “OK, here’s the deal: I’ll pay for the gas, and you’ll drive us to California to the beach at Santa Monica.”

With a straight face he says, “OK, meet me here at midnight. It’s the end of my run and they won’t miss me or the bus until morning. I’ll get some barbecue.” He smiles. A PLAYER.

Consider this lady with a shopping cart full of oddball stuff standing beside me in front of the cheese counter at the grocery story.

My invitation: “I like the groceries in your cart better than mine. Want to trade? You take mine and I’ll take yours. Could be interesting when we get home.”

She smiles. Checks out my cart. “You’ve got a deal,” she says. We take each other’s carts and roll away. Later, she’s waiting for me at the check-out counter. She knows and I know: we weren’t really going to go through with it. But those few moments of madness brought new meaning to “going to the store for a few things.” And the lady knows the game. A PLAYER.

On the other hand: There’s a tailor shop on Queen Anne Avenue. Sign in the window says “ALTERATIONS AND REPAIRS FOR MEN AND WOMEN.” The tailor is standing in the doorway. I stop.

“I’d like to get altered and repaired,” I say.

She looks at me cautiously. Goes inside. Closes the door. NOT A PLAYER.

Second Reading

WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I DONE?
Robert Fulghum (excerpts)

Here’s me again, at a well-known company to pick up copies of a manuscript. I am visibly annoyed – this is my third trip to get what was promised yesterday. The anxious clerk, Miss Saucer-eyes, is obviously new to the herd behind the counter and doesn’t know what to do with me or for me. The work is still not done, despite promises. Getting mad won’t help.

“OK, I won’t make any trouble,” I say, “Just give me a really clever, off-the-wall creative excuse – the wildest thing you can think of. Make me laugh and I’ll go away.”

Miss Saucer-eyes is mute. This situation was not covered in training school last week. “I’ll speak to my manager.”

Definitely not a PLAYER. But the story continues.

Miss Saucer-eyes retreats to the back of the shop and consults with her boss, a high-energy, sharply dressed woman, who marches briskly toward me with a steely look.

She leans over the counter and explains: “Sir, you may not know this, but this store has been a front for the Irish Republican Army for years. We’re supposed to be turning in our firearms, and it seems a bazooka is missing from the inventory. When we find the bazooka, things will get back to normal. If I were you, I wouldn’t make any trouble – just come back tomorrow, OK?”

A big league PLAYER.

A garbageman in charge of a monster truck. Lousy day. Cold. Rain. But he’s a Player. This time the invitation comes from him. As I pass by, he says, “Hey, you look prosperous.”

“Thank you. I feel prosperous.”

“You look like a man who might have some frequent-flyer miles.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Lots of them.”

“Listen, I need enough to get me to Buenos Aires, one way.”

I’ve got enough. They’re yours. But what’s in it for me?”

“Take the keys to this garbage truck. It’s yours. Even trade.”

“Yes! I’ve long had an urge to drive one of those things. I’d like to dump a load of garbage in a certain person’s front yard. It’s a deal.”

“You got a license to drive a truck?”

“Well, no.”

“Deals off. I can’t be part of anything illegal, but no problem. Get a license. I’m here every Monday.”

As he drives off, I wonder how many other people on his route get offers from him every day. He has all the nervy characteristics of a nonstop all-day PLAYER.

One final example: A double whammy I didn’t see coming.

Clerk in a bookstore – older lady with dyed red hair. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“Happy birthday,” I say. (Always makes people smile – sometimes you’re early, sometimes late, but sometimes right on. An invitation to play.)

“Well, I hope you’re coming to my party,” she says. “We need someone to jump out of a cake.”

“I’m your man.”

“You’d be expected to go-go dance naked.”

“Then I’m not your man.”

“My mistake. I thought you looked a little kinky.”

A PLAYER.

A lady waiting in line behind me overheard this bookstore babble and drifted away from the counter and out the door. She missed her chance.

Probably not a PLAYER.

Later, as I walked by a sidewalk table at a nearby coffeehouse, I spot the lady who fled the store.

“Sorry, hope we didn’t annoy you,” I said.

She smiled. “Oh no,” she replied, “It’s just that I jumped out of the cake last year. It hurts my feelings to think they’re looking for a replacement.”

A PLAYER after all.

Sermon

In our readings this morning, Robert Fulghum is, essentially, asking each of the people he encounters: “Are you a player?” This is a not inconsequential question. Are you? Or you or you or you? Are you a player?

Several Christmas’ ago, I got my spouse, Micah, a game he’d been wanting for a long time. It’s called Forbidden Island and the game is about retrieving four treasures from different parts of the island and then getting off the island before it floods. Micah was reading the directions aloud and while I understood the object of the game easily enough, I couldn’t quite see how the rules I was hearing would align with a strategy until I heard, Micah say: “We have to work together.” Oh. Ooh. Then it made sense. It was a cooperative game. I had been listening with the assumption that it was yet another competitive game. But this time, we would win or lose together.

As it turns out, the game of Forbidden Island is much like the game of Real Life. We have to work together to get anywhere we really want to go. For a long time, people believed that evolution was primarily a matter of survival of the fittest, the ultimate in competitive games. More recently, anthropologists have come to understand the essential role that cooperation – plays in evolution. Humans were, and are, able to evolve in the ways we do because we cooperate in meeting common goals. The strategy for the game of Real Life is cooperation.

And this is important because as Peter Gray, a psychology professor at Boston College says: “Play primarily evolved to teach children all kinds of skills, and its extension into adulthood may have helped to build cooperation and sharing among hunter-gathers beyond the level that would naturally exist in a dominance-seeking species.” In other words, not only is cooperation essential to the path of human evolution, but play is what helps us learn cooperation.

Play has other benefits as well. Lisa Barnett, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says we play because it is therapeutic. In the work environment, play speeds up learning, increases productivity and improves job satisfaction while at home, play helps with bonding and communication. She says that playful adults have better coping skills. While they feel the same stressors as everyone else, they experience and react to these stressors differently. Playful adults can transform stressful situations into something entertaining, which then allows stressors to roll off more easily than for those who are less playful.

The late Edwin Friedman – rabbi, family therapist, congregational consultant, and author of what is pretty much “the Bible” of congregational systems theory said that: “A major criterion for judging the anxiety level of any society [that is congregation] is the loss of its capacity to be playful.” In other words, playfulness, and the ability to be playful, is an essential attribute of a healthier congregation or family or individual.

And so the question remains, are you a player? Fulghum gave us a definition of a player as a: “person with enough nimbleness of mind to accept a surprise invitation to jump into a quick game of imagination. [A person] with a loosey-goosey sense of mischief.”

I’m guessing that some of you might have noticed some mischief going on around here the last month or two with miniature versions of some of the staff popping up here and there. In case you missed it, here’s some photographic evidence.

Images on the screen of Barbie dolls outfitted as church staff members and their personal equipment.

Of course, Robert Fulghum is not the only person to try to define what a player is. According to researchers who published a study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences there are four types of playful adults. (Wallace, 2017)

    • those who outwardly enjoy fooling around with friends, colleagues, relatives and acquaintances;
    • those who are generally lighthearted and not preoccupied by the future consequences of their behavior;
    • those who play with thoughts and ideas;
    • and those who are whimsical, exhibiting interest in strange and unusual things and are amused by small, everyday observations.

I think I’d definitely put Robert Fulghum in that last category.

Or, with a hat tip to Kelly, who brought this back from the last LREDA conference, we can think about these 8 play personalities as identified by a researcher named Stuart Brown.

Let’s try to have a little fun with this. I’ll describe the play personality and then whoever feels like they have that personality can raise their hand. You can raise your hand as many times as you’d like. (This is one situation in which you are not limited to having only one personality.)

The Joker – Play revolves around silliness and making others laugh. Jokers tend to be the “class clown” in school, and may engage in play through telling jokes, doing funny impersonations, or playing practical jokes.

The Kinesthete plays through movement. They experience pleasure in movement and feeling the result of physically pushing their bodies. While this category may include athletes, competition is not the main focus; the joy of engaging in the activity takes precedence. The Kinesthetete’s play might take the form of running, dancing, sports, yoga, swimming, hiking or walking.

The Explorer is enthusiastic about, and engages in play by exploring the world around them. The Explorer’s play can be physical (going to new places) emotional (search for a deepening of emotion through music, art or movement) or mental (researching a new area of interest or reading a book).

The Competitor engages in play through competitive games with specific rules, and enjoys the thrill of winning. The games can be solitary, such as trying to beat his/her top score in a video game, or social, such as competing in a team sport. Competitors may also play through observing and being a fan of competitive sports.

The Director engages in play through planning and executing events. They are the organizers of the social world and may be the instigators of a weekend up North, or throwing a party. Directors may be active in creating a facebook group, or organizing a meet-up.

The Collector plays through engaging in seeking and holding onto the most, best and most interesting collection of objects or experiences. They experience bliss in finding a new piece/experience, organizing or showing off their collection. The Collector may be interested in coins, purses, shoes, cars, or photographs (the possibilities are endless!)

The Artist/Creator plays through creating and making things. The Artist/Creator may engage in drawing, building, or sculpting, painting, singing, knitting, gardening, woodworking, or any number of creative endeavors. The Artist/Creator may also take joy in fixing or making something work, like taking a part a broken item, cleaning and replacing parts, and putting it back together again.

The Storyteller engages in play through adventure into the imagination. They may enjoy reading novels, writing, or watching movies and theater. Storytellers enjoy being immersed in a story, experiencing the thoughts and emotions of characters in the stories.

Well, that was fun! So why does it matter whether we play, or are playful, in church? In addition to keeping levels of anxiety down, there are probably many, but I’ll share two more for now.

One is that in our playfulness we turn toward each other as play partners. We become less self-absorbed and more community oriented. In order to play with each other or play off each other, we need to pay attention to each other and how our wants, needs, hopes, dreams, personalities, and even our cultures differ. Music, staff, ministry teams play can also support us in meeting the goal of becoming more radically welcoming. Once we know, understand, and care about our needs we can better meet them. Think about that explorer personality.

Another possibility relates to the work of faith formation. We have covenanted to encourage one another to spiritual growth. In order to be thea/ologically or philosophically flexible we need to be able to be both creative and open to change with our ideas. For some of us, this aligns with process thea/ology specifically. G_d, or Love, or that which is Ultimate is continually in process and so are we. Being playful helps us to be more flexible.

So… it doesn’t really matter what kind of player you are, just that you play and play often. And, if you are not a player, or not much of a player, know that you can learn to play. Play skills are something you can teach yourself by observing the ways in which others play or by trying out one of the play personalities we talked about today.

Today is the first Sunday we have gathered all together since the start of the New Year. Last week, you ritually let go of those things you wished to leave in the past, with the Burning Bowl service led by Bis. Now it is time to choose what it is you would like to take up in the New Year. I invite you to consider taking up play. The interim period can be a stressful time. Learning to play together, or how to play together better, can relieve some of the stress and anxiety inherent in any transition, including an interim ministry. Plus – it’s fun! And who doesn’t want to have more fun? The only question remaining is … Are you a player?

Amen and Blessed Be

Benediction

As you venture into the new year …
may you find a nimbleness of mind and spirit,
may much love and laughter await you,
and may all that is Good hold you and keep you. Amen and Blessed Be

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

Christmas Pageant 2023

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave, Rev. Chris Jimmerson and Kelly Stokes
December 17, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We join together for this annual tradition of song and holiday merriment.


Chalice Lighting

We’re Unitarians.
We’re Universalists.

Now we light our chalice.
We’re the church of the open mind.
We’re the church of the listening ears.
We’re the church of the loving heart
and helping hands.

Call to Worship

WHAT ARE YOU HERE FOR?
by Quinn G. Caldwell

If you came to this place expecting a tame story, you came to the wrong place.

If you came for a story that does not threaten you, you came for a different story than the one we tell.

If you came to hear of the coming of a God who only showed up so that you could have a nice day with your loved ones, then you came for a God whom we do not worship here.

For even a regular baby is not a tame thing. And goodness that cannot threaten complacency and evil is not much good at all, and a God who would choose to give up power and invincibility to become an infant for you, certainly didn’t do it just you could have dinner.

But.

If you came because you think that unwed teenage mothers are some of the strongest people in the world.

If you came because you think that the kind of people who work third shift doing stuff you’d rather not do might attract an angel’s attention before you, snoring comfortably in your bed, would.

If you came because you think there are wise men and women to be found among undocumented travelers from far lands and that they might be able to show you God.

If you came to hear a story of tyrants trembling while heaven comes to peasants.

If you came because you believe that God loves the animals as much as the people and so made them the first witnesses to the saving of the world.

If you came for a story of reversals that might end up reversing you.

If you came for a tale of adventure and bravery, where strong and gentle people win, and the powerful and violent go down to dust, where the rich lose their money but find their lives and the poor are raised up like kings.

If you came to be reminded that God loves you too much to leave you unchanged.

If you came to follow the light even if it blinds you.

If you came for salvation and not safety, then: ah, my friends, you are in the right place.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

THE INNKEEPER
by Anne Dilenschneider

The innkeeper isn’t part of most Nativity sets. No one sings carols about innkeepers. There don’t seem to be any paintings that include them. But we can imagine the scene:

Bethlehem is crowded with people coming home for the census. It’s late at night when the innkeeper responds to a knock on the door and finds a young couple standing there. The woman is very pregnant. She and her spouse look exhausted. They’ve walked a hundred miles over rough, rocky terrain to get here from Nazareth.

The innkeeper is confronted with a dilemma. The inn is full; there just isn’t any more room. At the same time, the innkeeper knows that offering hospitality is part of being God’s people, because they had been sojourners and strangers in Egypt. That’s why the innkeeper has always made sure there’s an empty chair for an unexpected guest at the annual seder meal celebrating Passover.

What to do?

As a child, the innkeeper had learned the story of Abraham and Sarah welcoming three strangers into their home. After they made the strangers a lavish feast, the couple discovered their guests were messengers (“angels”) sent to bring great news: as laughable as it seemed, the elderly Sarah was going to have a baby. So, the innkeeper knows the tradition of entertaining strangers; the innkeeper knows strangers are messengers (“angels”) from God.

Tonight there is a bedraggled and weary couple on this very doorstep.

What to do?

The innkeeper pulls the door to a bit, hastily assessing the situation. Is there any space, anywhere? The beds are all taken. There are even people sleeping on the floor. What to do? Is there any possible solution?

In a moment of inspiration, the innkeeper remembers the stable out behind the inn. It’s not much, but it’s some protection from the wind. No matter how bitter the weather may become, the heat from the animals will keep these guests warm.

The innkeeper flings open the door and welcomes the couple with a broad smile. There’s not much, but there’s a possibility. A stable. Will it suffice?

It does.

And the innkeeper saves the day.

Christmas Pageant

Reading

“EACH NIGHT A CHILD IS BORN”
by Sophia Lyon Fahs

For so the children come
and so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they came-
Born of the seed of man and woman.

No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
no wise man see a star to show where to find
The babe that will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers
Sitting beside their children’s cribs-
Feel glory in the sight of a new beginning.
They ask “Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?”

Each night a child is born is a holy night
A time for singing-
A time for wondering
A time for worshipping.


SERMON INDEX

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

PODCASTS

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