The Power of Storytelling

May 16, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
May 16, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

The stories we tell ourselves both as individuals and as a culture have powerful effects on how we live our lives, make meaning of our world and treat one another. Might some of them be retold in ways that would improve our lives and our world!

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

It’s no coincidence that just at this point in our insight into our mysteriousness as human beings struggling toward compassion, we are also moving into an awakened interest in the language of myth and fairy tale. The language of logical argument, of proofs, is he language of the limited self we know and can manipulate. But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling, moves from the imprisoned language of the provable into the freed language of what I must, for lack of another word, continue to call faith.

– Madeleine L’Engle, “A Circle of Quiet”

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

“Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I’m beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it’s actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative – they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don’t fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.”

– Arundhati Roy, “The God of Small Things”

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 21 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

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

PODCASTS

Abandon Hope and Fear

May 9, 2021 by tom Posted in Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 9, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This Sunday we begin revisiting the Buddhist 8 fold path. I am not a Buddhist, but I am fascinated by what I’ve read and heard. This Sunday we will talk about the way things are, according to Buddhist thought, and why abandoning hope and fear might not be a bad thing.

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 GUEST HOUSE
Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

For me it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

– Carl Sagan

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Waiting to Exhale

May 2, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons

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Guest Speaker Rev. Bill Sinkford
First Unitarian Portland
May 2, 2021

When the justice system is bent against black lives, those black lives lose faith in justice until there is proof it is served. They hold their breath, bated and unsure, waiting to finally exhale when justice rings true. We have all been changed, we are all grieving, there will be more lives lost but perhaps there is still evidence for 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 HILL WE CLIMB
Amanda Gorman
(Biden inauguration poem)

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future history
has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation
and every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

COULD WE PLEASE GIVE THE POLICE DEPARTMENTS TO THE GRANDMOTHERS
Junauda Petrus-Nasah

Could we please give the police departments to the grandmothers. Give them the salaries and the pensions and the city vehicles, but make them a fleet of vintage corvettes, jaguars and cadillacs, with white leather interior. Diamond in the back, sunroof top and digging the scene with the gangsta lean.

Let the cars be badass!

You would hear the old school jams like Patti Labelle, Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker and Al Green. You would hear Sweet Honey in the Rock harmonizing on “We who believe in freedom will not rest” bumping out the speakers. And they got the booming system.

If you up to mischief, they will pick you up swiftly in their sweet ride and look at you until you catch shame and look down at your lap. She asks you if you are hungry and you say “yes” and of course you are. She got a crown of dreadlocks and on the dashboard you see brown faces like yours, shea buttered and loved up

And there are no precincts.

Just love temples, that got spaces to meditate and eat delicious food. mangoes, blueberries, nectarines, cornbread, peas and rice, fried plantain, fufu, yams, greens, okra, pecan pie, salad and lemonade.

Things that make your mouth water and soul arrive.

All the hungry bellies know warmth, all the children expect love. The grandmas help you with homework, practice yoga with you and teach you how to make jamabalaya and coconut cake. From scratch.

When your sleepy she will start humming and rub your back while you drift off. A song that she used to have the record of when she was your age. She remembers how it felt like to be you and be young and not know the world that good. Grandma is a sacred child herself, who just circled the sun enough times into the ripeness of her cronehood.

She wants your life to be sweeter.

When you are wildin’ out because your heart is broke or you don’t have what you need the grandmas take your hand and lead you to their gardens. You can lay down amongst the flowers. Her grasses, roses, dahlias, irises, lilies, collards, kale, eggplants, blackberries. She wants you know that you are safe and protected, universal limitless, sacred, sensual, divine and free.

Grandma is the original warrior, wild since birth, comfortable in loving fiercely. She has fought so that you don’t have to, not in the same ways at least.

So give the police departments to the grandmas, they are fearless, classy and actualized. Blossomed from love. They wear what they want and say what they please.

Believe that.

There wouldn’t be noise citations when the grandmas ride through our streets, blasting Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Alice Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, KRS-One. All that good music. The kids gonna hula hoop to it and sell her lemonade made from heirloom pink lemons and maple syrup. The car is solar powered and carbon footprint-less, the grandmas designed the technology themselves.

At night they park the cars in a circle so all can sit in them with the sun roofs down, and look at the stars, talk about astrological signs, what to plant tomorrow based on the moon’s mood and help you memorize Audre Lorde and James Baldwin quotes. She always looks you in the eye and acknowledges the light in you with no hesitation or fear. And grandma loves you fiercely forever.

She sees the pain in our bravado, the confusion in our anger, the depth behind our coldness. Grandma know what oppression has done to our souls and is gonna change it one love temple at a time. She has no fear.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Blues Theology (Revisited)

May 2, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 25, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This sermon was originally presented on February 10, 2019.

Wynton Marsalis, in his book “To A Young Jazz Musician: Letters From The Road”, talks about the philosophy of the Blues, how it both expressed and healed the lives of black people as they lived in a society which was structured to marginalize them. How do we learn from the Blues to express suffering, to face it, and to build and celebrate resilience?

Meditation Reading

THE STREET
by Ann Petry

(About Billie Holiday) Her voice had a thin thread of sadness running through it that made the song important. That made it tell a story that wasn’t in the words. A story of dispair, of loneliness, of frustration. It was a story that all of them knew by heart, that they had always known because they learned it soon after they were born and would go on adding to it until the day they died.

Sermon

Ok, what is a white woman doing talking about the blues? That’s my identity, and I put it out there right here at the beginning. I’m not a Blues expert, but I love listening to the blues, and I wanted to learn from the Blues and talk to you about what I’m learning.

It’s a cliche that ‘all blues starts “woke up this morning.” ‘ this meant more than ‘I opened my eyes in bed as the sun came up.’ Here is what the singers and the listeners, at least at the beginning of the Blues in the South, knew was the meaning of the words:

“I woke up this morning knowing that in half an hour I’ll be pushing a massive plow behind a stubborn mule or bending over to hoe weeds, and I’ll be doing that until it’s too dark to see. And tomorrow and the next day and the next day, I’ll do it again, until, most likely, I work until I die, broke, just like my parents and grandparents. But right now I’m dancing.”

The Blues talk about real life. They tell the truth, even if in coded language, and the expression is true. If, as Keats says, truth is beauty, then the Blues are beautiful. The sadness is beautiful when it’s true.

Ralph Ellison said that ‘the blues is an impulse to keep painful details and episodes of brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain.’

The blues are the voice of an oppressed and alienated people. The blues has always provided a unique way to ‘find one’s voice’ and to attest to the hardships of life in a way that draws others in rather than turning them away . Your friend might say to you “My Baby cheated on me. It has changed the way I feel about them. My love has been diminished, and I wonder whether I should break up with them, because if I do, I won’t have anyone.”

OR your friend could sing The thrill is gone

The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sorry someday
The thrill is gone
It’s gone away from me
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away from me
Although, I’ll still live on
But so lonely I’ll be
The thrill is gone

– BB King

The music can capture the pain of life, and the massive scale of exposure to painful trauma, loss, and adversity associated with enduring the humiliation and brutality of slavery and its transition to sharecropping. After slavery came the way its legacy was built into the culture, with Jim Crow laws, enforced through lynchings beatings and the KKK’s terrorism. Extreme poverty and harsh lives on the streets, and frequent arrest, incarceration, and the experience of prison road gangs, compounded by devastating and uprooting natural disasters (including droughts, floods, and hurricanes) perpetuated the pain.

Its musical expression followed the massive displacement of large populations from the plantations of the South to Northern cities such as Chicago, and later incorporated the experience of black soldiers returning after World War II and the Vietnam War. In this way, the blues served to hold and document memories, create a sense of community, and provide a platform to share their visceral impact with others.

Research done at Mt Sinai Hospital has shown that trauma makes changes in DNA, and this trauma, the PTSD, can be passed on through subsequent generations. These genetic changes can cause depression, differences in ways of regulating emotions, being wired to see threat and tragedy. This is what our government has set in motion by separating children from their parents on the border. The very DNA has been affected, and brains were re-wired.

The blues to create a shared narrative, a story that the system of white culture constantly tries to erase. You hear people say “We’re a nation of immigrants,” and they are lovely people, but they “forget” that 12 million African teachers, mothers, fathers, children, medicine people, farmers and merchants were captured and dragged to the Americas in chains.

About 350,000 were brought to the 13 colonies, and the rest were sold to the sugar plantations in the Carribean and Brazil. You hear politicians even today say “America was built on freedom and enterprise,” erasing the fact that the labor of enslaved men and women was a big engine of the American economy. There was even an article in Forbes Magazine a couple of years ago laying all of this out. To have the story of your people ignored and erased makes you feel crazy and angry, and the retelling of these stories can strengthen solidarity among the people, reminding them that they are being affected by these traumas, and that a lot of what happens has roots in the history that the culture around them is working hard on forgetting.

There are ongoing arguments about whether people who don’t live their lives as Black Americans can authentically sing the blues. The blues have a form, so anyone can technically play. 4/4 time, 12 measures, a blues scale. They are also an expression, though, of trauma and pain. Almost all people have trauma and pain, some say, and you express that through the blues.

“I am not maintaining that only African-Americans should be allowed to perform the blues. The point is only that blues authenticity depends upon group membership. While cultural outsiders can sing the blues, it should be understood that what is being sung in these cases is a variant of a cultural expression derived from a very different kind of experience”.

– Philip Jenkins

I was doing some learning about this last week. In my southern culture, the way we deal with bad things happening is that we ignore it or we refer to it in a vague way. And we move on. Well, there is a big lump under the rug, but we step over it. Sometimes we trip over it. “What’s wrong with Aunt Clara?” Well, she married a Catholic.” Whispered. I heard a whisper that one of my cousins had cancer, but then, when I asked about it, I got just vagueness. I’ve done this myself here, because I got here after the church had a big trauma. They had dismissed the minister, who was a controversial figure from the beginning. (I’m nervous talking about this because there are still folks here whose feelings about that time run high.) Anyway, no one was really talking about it when I got here. Being a family therapist by training, I knew talking about it needed to happen. I started calling it “The Troubles.”

This week, though, I had a couple of conversations about restorative justice, where, when a mistake happens, where damage is done, the thing that caused the damage needs to be named. You may have heard that a year ago we invited a man named Fidel to come do a program about the Water Protectors. He claimed he would bring some Native friends to do a ceremony. We did our due diligence, we checked his references, his social media, all good. Then he came, and brought an insulting and shallow program that lasted too long, and instead of Native friends to lead us through a ritual, he had a white lady who sang what sounded like fake Native songs. When some of our guests from the Indigenous community spoke up, toward the end of the thing, Fidel treated them dismissively. Harm was done to the Indigenous community and to the relationship between this congregation and the Indigenous community in Austin.

“Say the words,” the church member said to me. I told her I would think about that, but it was hard to figure out what she meant. I asked Jules what she thought that meant. She said “saying the words, naming the thing that did damage, is a way of letting everyone in the conversation know that you haven’t forgotten what happened. It lets people trust that you aren’t trying to sweep something under the rug. It is a way of bringing your history with you into conversations with people who may not be “over it” yet, who may not be ready or able to “move on.”

The Blues are about saying the words, repeating the words because repeated telling is how people process trauma. You shout and cry, confess and complain, all to a party dancing beat. You can dance and grieve, shout out your pain, all at the same time, if you want. The shouting comes from the field shouts, back and forth, singing in coded language while doing the back breaking work of hoeing or picking cotton. Talking about a mean woman taking all your money, when you really mean the boss man who is mean and takes all your money. The Blues scale has flatted notes and minor notes which express sadness, and bent notes, quarter tones, which don’t appear in Western classical music, but are all over classical African, Middle Eastern, and Asian music. The note which is not quite the note, and then resolves into what our ear was expecting, creates a tension and then a release of the tension that is part of the healing.

Saying the words, repeating the words, creating tension then relieving tension, all to a dance beat, within a structure that frees you to create within it, those are ways of healing trauma.

People from many cultures can learn from the Blues, and I think sitting at the feet of these artists, this music, can teach us. In the culture in which I was raised, it is shameful to struggle, shameful to be traumatized. We try not to speak of it, or we speak of it in whispers. Speaking your trauma in this midst of a positive life? My people don’t know how to do that.

Speak of the trauma. Speak it as many times as you need to. Put it into a structure that helps contain the sorrow, and tell your truth about it. If you can put it to a beat that lets you know you can be sorrowful and dance at the same time, that is amazing. The healing doesn’t mean the history goes away. It means you have a group of people who can listen to what happened and dance with you because you share the suffering.

What history do we in this church, and as members of the UU denomination, need to speak about and bring with us? How has the Unitarian movement and the Universalist movement attracted and then driven away so many among us who are black and brown over the past 100 years. The mix is a lot whiter now than it was years ago, and there are reasons for that. We have some work to do “Saying the words.”

“Living is a positive experience. That’s what the blues teaches you. That’s why it continues to exist. And that’s why it’s in so much music. Yeah, all of this tragic stuff happened to you, but you’re still here. And you can still express being here with style. Like laughing to keep from crying. And you keep dancing, man….

– Wynton Marsalis

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Pathways Ever Unfolding

April 19, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
April 18, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We, and all that is, are changing, at least ever so slightly, in every moment. We are always becoming something new. Our ever-unfolding, ever-changing nature is inevitable. Our agency lies in the choices we make as to what direction, what path, our becoming will follow. We’ll explore the creative, life-giving, life-saving possibilities to which the spirit of love and life, the greater good, call 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

Everything is in process, even the seemingly solid bed rock of earth has gone through enormous changes since it was star stuff, then magma. Nor was reality quite like the ancients saw it, changing combinations of earth, fire, water and air or spirit. Nor is it made up chiefly of mass and space as in Newtonian physics. What seems to us to be things are just packets of energy related for a time. There events actual occasions. So are we.

– Rev. John Buehrens

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

To become is a life long process. Nothing is constant, not even the self. We evolve in the midst of narratives meant only for some and ways of being made narrow by fear and power. We must, then, have the courage to listen to the truth of our own lives, to the wisdom that comes from within – responding without resistance or need to control, but with welcome and curiosity. This is what ensures our becoming is an unfolding of our truest self. This lifelong labor cannot be carried out alone. It requires help from friends, and lovers, family, and creaturely companions who bear witness to what makes us come alive. And say to us, “Listen. Look. Feel. Pay attention to that.”

This is loving and being loved.

Telling the stories. Sharing in the memories. Giving thanks for the relationships, understandings, and experiences past that have shaped us to this day.

This is loving and being loved.

Celebrating new beginnings that excite. Holding risks together. Leaning into unknowns with the promises of support and companionship.

This is loving and being loved.

Like listening to the future calling uniquely to each of us in the midst of all of life’s noise. Helping one another find our place in the shared labor of collective life. Supporting each other in what it is the world’s ache is asking from us.

This is loving and being loved.

To say, for the first time, “This is who I am. This is the truth of my body. This is what I know about myself. This is my name and this is where my path is leading me.” And to have it heard. Have it received. Have it affirmed. And then, to say it again, and again, as we change and as the world changes, and to have each proclamation greeted with an open-armed embrace:

This is loving and being loved.

There is no me without you. We shape one another. The Sacred that birthed us weaves our lives together so that we can only find ourselves through shared becoming. For my journey and all its winding ways. For yours. For all the saints who labored for what is, all the kin whose lives made ours possible. For all those yet to come for whom living our truths today will mean breaking possibilities open for them tomorrow: We pause. We give thanks. We acknowledge.

This is loving and being loved

– Enfleshed

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

History – It’s Complicated

April 11, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 11, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

It appears that our brains are wired to simplify the world for our intake. We assign heroes and villains and we forget to be curious, to ask questions, to get the rest of the story.

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

May the light around us guide our footsteps and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek.

May the darkness around us nurture our dreams and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of our world.

Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astounding dance in which we move.

– Kathleen McTigue

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart…even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.

– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

When Harold Hatcher gave up, He grew

April 4, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 4, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Join us this Easter Sunday for a sermon about a man who reinvented himself after giving up on people. His name, appropriately enough, was Harold Hatcher. He was a member of the UU congregation Rev. Meg served in South Carolina and he may have touched more lives after he gave up on people than he did before.

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

i thank You God for most this amazing
by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You”
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

Nothing retains its original form, but Nature, the goddess of all renewal, keeps altering one shape into another. Nothing at all in the world can perish, you have to believe me; things merely vary and change their appearance. What we call birth is merely becoming a different entity; what we call death is ceasing to be the same. Though the parts may possibly shift their position from here to there, the wholeness in nature is constant.

-Ovid Metamorphosis

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Side With Love

March 28, 2021 by tom Posted in Guest Speakers, Sermons

Side with Love Sunday
with the UUA
March 28, 2021

In 2021, the annual 30 Days of Love celebration centers 4 themes from a Widening the Circle of Concern, a report from the Commission on Institutional Change, a UUA Board-commissioned group charged with researching, reporting, and making recommendations for transforming white supremacy and other oppressions in the institutional history and practices of the UUA and its 1,000+ congregations and covenanted communities. This Side With Love Sunday worship service lifts up those themes: Living our values, Hospitality & inclusion, Educating for Liberation, and Restoration and Reparations. What if to “side with love” meant making bold, faith-full choices! What if it were even a little bit scary! This worship service brings together worship leaders and musicians from across the country to offer hopeful, moving, challenging reminders about what we, as Unitarian Universalists, are called to do, and BE, in the world.

https://sidewithlove.org/

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Commitment Creates Connection

March 21, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 21, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our commitments are central to our lives, our relationship with ourselves, with others and our world. Yet, we can over-commit, fail to live up to our commitments, find ourselves needing to renegotiate them or even withdraw from them. We’ll explore the nuances of our commitments and how they have helped us make it through an extraordinarily challenging year.

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

Inevitably in our lives we commit ourselves to something, whether worthy or not. The direction and intensity of our loyalties give shape and meaning to our lives. Loyalties, commitments, covenants, the promises we make to one another, these are the things that tell us to what we belong. By giving so they tell us who we are.

– Henry Nelson Weiman

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

While we might want community, it is often community on our terms, with easy entrances and exits, lots of choices and support and minimal responsibilities… Our lives are knit together not so much by intense feelings as by shared history, tasks, commitments, stories, and sacrifices.

– Christine D Pohl

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Third Lap in a Four Lap Race

March 14, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
March 14, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

March 15 marks one year since First UU Austin began social distanced worship. Since we’ve gone inside we have continued to explore, experiment, and expand our understanding of how we exist as a community. We are looking back at this year of rapid learning and seeing how far we have come while honoring the knowledge that we are still in the midst of it all. In this time let us take a moment to observe the world, to feel the wind and the sun, to absorb the promise that there is more good to come. We aren’t yet at the end but we are getting there together.

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

ANTHEM

You can add up the parts
But you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

– Leonard Cohen

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

PANDEMIC

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath-
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love-
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

-Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

The Power of Our Words

March 7, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
March 7, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Almost all faith traditions lift up the power of words: to encourage, to comfort, to mislead, to hurt, to cast a spell, to incite a riot. What kind of attention should we pay to the words we say and to the promises we make?

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

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.

– Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

A SINGLE WORD CAN BRIGHTEN THE FACE
by Yunus Emre
English version by Kabir Helminski & Refik Algan
Original Language Turkish

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.

War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there’s a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.

Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.

Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.
A single word turns the universe of hell
into eight paradises.

Follow the Way. Don’t be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.

Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words —
Only the word “I”
divides me from God.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Need a Little Mercy Now

February 28, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
February 28, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We have all been through something very difficult. Whether we lost power and water or just had to watch our family and friends lose those things and not be able to help because we couldn’t get out, it has been a very traumatizing time. What does that do to a person’s brain? What does that do to a person’s energy? What is trauma brain? Do you have that?

Chalice Lighting

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

Call to Worship

For those whose relationship with time has become disordered or decentered – Peace.

For those whose hearts or minds are struggling, who feel too much at sea – Peace.

For those who feel buffeted between anger and sadness, anxiety and dispair – Peace.

For all who struggle in secret and all those whose struggles are too much on display – Peace.

You are not alone. You are enough. You are worthy. You do not have to be anything more than yourself, human, alive, to be deeply loved.

Amen

– Audette Fulbright

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

You’re not imagining it, nobody seems to want to talk right now.
Messages are brief and replies late.
Talk of catch ups on zoom are perpetually put on hold.
Group chats are no longer pinging all night long.
It’s not you.
It’s everyone.
We are spent.
We have nothing left to say.
We are tired of saying ‘I miss you’ and ‘I cant wait for this to end’.
So we mostly say nothing, put our heads down and get through each day.
You’re not imagining it.
This is a state of being like no other we have ever known because we are all going through it together but so very far apart.
Hang in there my friend.
When the mood strikes, send out all those messages and don’t feel you have to apologise for being quiet.
This is hard.
No one is judging.

– Donna Ashworth
Author of poetry book, “to the women”

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Muppet Theology Rebroadcast

February 21, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
February 21, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We know that many folks may be enduring hardship because of the terrible weather and power outages we’ve experienced this last week. We are not addressing these conditions in the sermon today because Rev. Chris has been without power since last Sunday and is still without power as of Friday morning. Because of this, along with travel issues on icy roads, a new sermon was not recorded, and we will be rebroadcasting a sermon that we hope lifts your spirits and brings you a little humor as we all try to thaw out and get our lives going again.

Jim and Jane Henson created their lovable puppet characters over six decades ago, and the Muppets really began to gain prominence in the early 1970s. Through their decades of television and movies, what have the Muppets had to tell us about life, love and creating 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

Play, humor, fun, joy, these are essential to human well-being. Yes, we need our serious sides too, but we can not thrive without these essentials of life.

– C E Limoux

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

Ingrid Fetell Lee “The Aesthetics of Joy”

JOY IS A PROPULSIVE FORCE It’s a curious feature of autocratic regimes that forms of joy are often banned. Music is a common one. In China under Mao, listening to the music of Beethoven was a crime. Folk or traditional music is typically condemned, such as in Nazi Germany, which targeted Jewish music…. Dancing was similarly reviled, and all types of celebration found themselves in the crosshairs of European colonists setting out to spread Christianity and “civilization” around the world. Music, dance, art, eroticism: all of these fuel an emotional response that creates momentum, one that can be hard to control….

So, simply put, joy can be considered resistance because it’s a form of “energy for change,” as Audre Lorde puts it.

Sermon

Swedish Chef Video

I have waited my entire life to begin a sermon with the Swedish Chef doing Rapper’s Delight.

And, choosing this service topic gave me an excuse to wear my new Muppet boots, featuring Animal.

In actuality, I have been thinking about doing this service since back when I was in seminary and having to read many, many, many theology books and write many, many theology papers.

One evening I decided I needed to clear my head of the deep thinking for a bit, so my spouse Wayne and I went out to see a movie.

Thinking it would get me about as far away from theology as I could get, we went to see the muppet movie that was playing at the time that was simply titled, “The Muppets”

By the way, for Unitarian Universalists, theology does not have to involve a God or Gods, though it can. It can also be about a way of thinking about and understanding that which is ultimate, that which is most important for living richly and fully, that which is larger than ourselves but of which we are a part.

Anyway, I am sitting there watching the movie, and I’m like, “Wow, there’s a kind of theology happening here.”

It’s about creating community and struggling together toward a common purpose. The Muppets have always had each other, even when things looked bleak. They stuck together. They stayed in relationship even when they had conflict.

They never let one another give up – they carried each other when needed.

And I sat there thinking, here we have a band of quirky, intelligent, creative oddballs and misfits who somehow find each other and create a caring community where they laugh, cry, play and sing together.

My God, they’re Unitarian Universalists!

I told Wayne all of this. He said, “Shut up and watch the movie.”

I’m joking about that last part. We talked on the way home, not during the movie. We were at Alamo Drafthouse, and the ghost of Ann Richards would have taken us out if we had done so.

Over the past 63 years now, in television programs like “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show”, as well as in their movies, the Muppets have modeled spiritual themes rooted in community, belonging and interconnectedness: we can help each other follow our dreams; reconciliation and redemption are possible.

They’ve modeled staying true to yourself and your calling; mysticism and wonder; the effort and the struggle being more important than the outcome; being willing to ask for help when we end it; and to quote one line from the movie, “Life’s a happy song when there’s someone beside you to sing it”.

A while back, I put a public post on Facebook, asking folks, “Over the years, what have you learned about life and living from the Muppets.

Now, I should have known in a mostly Unitarian Universalist crowd that I would get some typically smart aleck responses like:

- It’s not easy being green.

- Don’t be a grouch or you’ll end up living in a garbage can.

- Cookies are good.

Don’t play with electricity like crazy Harry

The more serious responses all also focused on belonging and relationship. Folks had gotten from the Muppets:

- The importance of listening deeply to one another.

- The power of music to turn strangers into friends and friends into family.

- How friends make life exponentially better.

- That you might as well embrace life’s weirdness because life is already weirder than you think.

- Caring and curiosity will make your own life better.

- Our differences are what make life more interesting and creative.

- Even with our differences, we can all live on the same street and get along.

We can all come together and create something beautiful if given the chance.

I loved it that one of church couples has decided that everyone has a “Spirit Muppet” in life (you know, like spirit animals), and they have chosen Ralph the Dog and Grover as theirs.

They decided this after reading about slate. com Supreme Court reporter Dahlia Lithwick’s “Unified Theory of Muppets Types” which theorizes a singular factor that divides us in our society: “Every one of us is either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet. “

Here’s how Lithwick explains her Unified Muppet Theory:

“Chaos Muppets are out-of-control, emotional, volatile. They tend toward the blue and fuzzy. They make their way through life in a swirling maelstrom of food crumbs, small flaming objects, and the letter C.

Cookie Monster, Ernie, Grover, Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and-paradigmatically-Animal, are all Chaos Muppets.

Zelda Fitzgerald was a Chaos Muppet. So, I must tell you, is former Justice Stephen Breyer.”

Order Muppets-and I’m thinking about Bert, Scooter, Sam the Eagle, Kermit the Frog, and the blue guy who is perennially harassed by Grover at restaurants (the Order Muppet Everyman)-tend to be neurotic, highly regimented, averse to surprises and may sport monstrously large eyebrows.

They sometimes resent the responsibility of the world weighing on their felt shoulders, but they secretly revel in the knowledge that they keep the show running.

Your first grade teacher was probably an Order Muppet. So is Chief Justice John Roberts.

And in this way, we can understand all societal conflict.

Are you an order muppet or a chaos muppet?

Now, whether or not you buy Lithwick’s “Unified Theory of Muppet Types”, I do think that the muppet characters can be thought of as archetypes that capture some of our human traits and, more specifically, our Unitarian Universalist faith characteristics rather well.

Of course, we have to start with Kermit the Frog, who I think can be thought of as representing our Unitarian Universalist rootedness in rationality and the use of reason. He’s a steadfast thinker and philosopher and a natural leader.

There is a great drive in this part of our faith that leads us to contemplation, discovery and progress in our state of knowledge. The shadow side of it though is that we can get so caught up in our heads that we sometimes do not actually act upon that knowledge.

But either way, how can we keep from loving a frog who does a cover of the Talking Head’s “Once in a Lifetime”.

Kermit Video

In contrast, I think Animal can be thought of us as representing our embodied, emotional, passionate side.

This is the side of us that drives to acting upon our faith but can also result in us being hasty and irrational.

Still, it is where a deep well of compassion and love resides. ÇAnimal VideoÈ

Next, I think Fozzy the Bear can represent how we can enhance our faith by infusing it with a sense of fun, fellowship, joy and humor.

While our faith would become shallow if these were all that it involved, fun, fellowship, joy and humor can very much help us sustain and deepen the other aspects of our spirituality.

Even when the jokes are really bad. Waka. Waka.

Fozzy Video

And then there’s Janice, our guitar rocking, deep thinking, mystical side of ourselves.

I also suspect Janice may be Buddhist.

Janice (and we) though have to be careful sometimes to avoid thinking we’re being deeper than we really are.

Janice Video

I have always loved Statler and Waldorf, the grumpy guys that sit up in the balcony and offer unsolicited commentary.

I think maybe they can be thought of as representing our Unitarian Universalist history of skepticism and questioning.

A healthy dose of skepticism and questing has helped keep ours an honest religion.

I think the danger may be that too much skepticism can devolve into sitting on the sidelines and criticizing the efforts of others in our faith.

Statler and Waldorf Video

And, of course, we cannot leave out Ms. Piggy, who as you heard in our reading earlier considers is a feminist, as well as I think represents that there is probably a spark of Diva along with that spark of the divine within each of us.

In fact, in 2015, Ms. Piggy received the Sackler Center First Award for her feminism from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Gloria Steinem, presented her with the award.

Ms. Piggy has a particular kind of feminism, I think. She embraces her femininity and feminine charm, but is also tough as nails, knows karate and will take you down if you mess with her!

I like to think of Ms Piggy as representing our strong and steadfast commitment to feminism and all struggles for equality and human rights – our affirming and promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Here’s Ms. Piggy in her own words with some advice on being stylish and living life.

Ms Piggy Video

So, those are just a few of our Muppet archetypes.

My apologies if I left out anyone’s favorite Muppet character. I leave it to you to figure out what archetype they may represent, as well as to discern your own “spirit muppet” if you are so moved.

I am leaning towards Gonzo.

So, to summarize, Muppet theology is about our need for connection, community and belonging.

It is about knowing that creating community can be messy and difficult sometimes, but, if we stay in relationship with each other even during the challenges, we can become our best selves and create something greater than ourselves at the same time.

Muppet theology is about learning that the things that may be our greatest strengths can also be aspects of ourselves that can contain challenges and potential pitfalls.

It is about being there for each other, carrying each other when it is needed, as well as celebrating our uniqueness and our differences.

In these times, wherein cynicism abounds, it occurred to me as I working on this service that the Muppets might seem a bit naive and simplistic these days.

Then I thought, “or perhaps they are expressing some very basic human values from which we can too easily become separated”.

Maybe we could benefit from a return to simple compassion, caring and communality. The Muppets model for us that sense of caring and compassion. They model how if we stay in community, stay in relationship through good times and bad, we can make beautiful music together.

And so it is that I am left with no choice but to close by offering you at least a small part of the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody.

Bohemian Rhapsody Video

And Amen.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

To Corinth with Love

February 14, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
February 14, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

One of the most famous poems about love is in the Christian New Testament. Who wrote it? To whom was it written, and why? What wisdom might it hold for 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

I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.

– Neil Gaiman “The Kindly Ones”

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

Corinthians 13

1. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Blessing of the Animals 2021

February 7, 2021 by tom Posted in Audio available, Meg Barnhouse, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
February 7, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We come to another of our beloved traditions held each year around Imbolc and St. Brigid’s Day. The Blessing of the Animals invites folks to (in a non-pandemic year) to bring their animal companions to church so that we may all benefit from their love as we bless them in their companionship to their humans. This year we asked folks to send in pictures of their pets with a note about how their animal buddies bless their lives. Join us for ooohs, ahhhhs, and awwwwws for all the paws and claws.

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 vital function that pets fufill in this world hasn’t been fully recognized. They keep millions of people sane. They have become guardians of being.

– Eckhardt Tolle

Affirming Our Mission

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

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

Meditation Reading

No matter how close we are to another person few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of his self. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished soul makes us wish consciously or unconsciously that we were as innocent as they are and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meaness, the betrayal, and the cruelties of this world are unknown.

– Dean Koontz, “A Big Little Life”

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS