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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
September 21, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
Unitarian Universalism has centered our faith in love. In this church, we often speak of an ocean of love that flows through our universe. Our stewardship campaign’s theme this year is “Living Love”. What might these beautiful abstractions look like in the concrete world of our daily lives? What if love is not just a feeling but is also something we do? How might we make love a verb?
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
from THE FIRE NEXT TIME
by James Baldwin
Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here, not merely in the personal sense, but as a state of being or a state of grace, not in the infantile American sense of being made happy, but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring growth.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Reading
Adapted from the “LOVE AS A BUSINESS IMPERATIVE”
episode of the Coach’s Rising Podcast
featuring Amy Elizabeth Fox and Jennifer Garvey Burger
I love “love” as a verb because it implies a state of rigor. That love is not a Hallmark sentimentality. It’s really well I stand in the trenches with you when things get hard. It’s also a practice, right?
It is like other verbs. Love is a developmental practice. It’s a practice of actually reaching outside of ourselves, opening ourselves up enough to let in another person.
I believe that pretty much everybody who walks on the planet is worthy of love if you can let them in. And they have something in them that if you were to see it would change you in some way.
Well, that’s a practice and it’s not always a fun practice and it’s not always a practice that works, right? Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s grunting and sometimes we fail, but it is a thing we could be trying to do every day.
Sermon
NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.
A little over a year ago, Unitarian Universalists adopted a set of religious values that centered our faith in love.
Now, well before our denominations centered our religion in love, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, so often at the forefront of things, had begun weaving love into the fabric of the shared, though multifaceted and pluralistic theological tapestry of this religious community.
Back in those “Before Times”, before a global pandemic altered our lives in ways we’re still struggling to understand, before the coming of ever escalating fascism to America, our lead prophet for those before times, then Senior Minister Reverend Meg Barnhouse, began speaking with us about a religious perspective rooted in this vision of a divine river of love that flows through our universe and beckons us to become its channels and tributaries, making that love manifest in our world while also adding to it. We added building the beloved community to our mission.
And after Meg retired, we continued swimming in those divine waters until at some point I began to feel that a river was not really enough to adequately contain the sheer magnitude of that divine love. And so we began speaking of an ocean of love that flows through our universe, or maybe I am just more melodramatic than Meg.
And then, even that began to seem inadequate to capture the true power of that love. This was not just any kind of love, after all. This was no nambi pambi syrupy sentimental Hallmark greeting card sort of love, no.
And so, borrowing from the work of others, especially BIPOC women such as Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis and activist Valerie Kaur, we began embracing a fierce love, a revolutionary love, a love ferocious enough to bring about beneficial change and demand justice in our world. A love that does not just provide comfort to us but also demands something of us in our relationships with one another and our world.
And this year I was so delighted when our terrific stewardship team continued that spiritual progression and chose “Living Love” as the theme for our pledge campaign this time because, because all of that language is so very beautiful and it all provides such a wonderful and inspirational aspirational centering for this religious community and it is all such magnificent theological and spiritual abstraction and how the heck do we go about living all of that beautiful inspirational aspirational abstraction in our daily lives?
What are we actually called to do in our personal lives, in our religious lives, in our communities, in our world. As we heard in our reading, how do we make love a verb, a practice? That’s why I was so glad that they chose Living Love as our theme, because that implies there are things we must do to make the beautiful theology a reality.
Now, given the fact that they are the stewardship team and it is the theme for the pledge campaign, I suspect you can imagine what they’re thinking we might do. And given that Mary here is our stewardship chair, I might get in trouble if I fail to mention pledging as a way of living love for your religious community. Beyond that, let’s explore for a few minutes how we might go about making fierce love a verb in our everyday lives.
Well I think one of the ways we do that is to make our commitment to that love and the ways we will go about living it explicit with one another. In this church we do that through a covenant of healthy relations. A covenant is a set of promises we make to one another about how we will dwell together in the ways of love. We’ve provided copies out in the foyer and have a link to it online in the comments, much of it is pretty straightforward, stuff like, “If I am upset with you, I will discuss it directly with you and not with 27 of our closest dearest friends first.” Things like disagreeing from a place of curiosity and respect, practicing forgiveness, these are just examples. And, What if we were to bring this idea of covenant into our relationships with our spouses, partners, family members, friends, and other loved ones?
How often do we express our love explicitly in both word and deed? How often do we simply tell our loved ones how much we love them? How often do we check in with how they are doing and how we are doing with them? Have we picked up their favorite ice cream on the way home lately? Or planned a fun family outing just to show them how deeply we love them. Some of you have already heard me talk about how me and my fiance Woodrow text each other goof morning every day and night night each evening. Well now we’ve gotten to the point where even if we’re actually together one of us will still text good morning or good night from right there in the same room. I know that’s a little silly and kooky and yet when we do even these small things to explicitly express our love the doing causes me to feel that love deep inside even more deeply. That’s the lovely paradox about love. The doing and the feeling both enhance one another and require one another.
Another way we make love a verb is by allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. We let other folks in. We reach out to them for support when we can’t go it alone or when we would just be better off if we didn’t.
And my beloveds, remember to experience and cherish the love even in the seemingly mundane. This widower so often misses the spouse he lost not so much on the big anniversary dates and the like. But just when I’m doing yard work and remember when we used to do that together and see a tree in the yard that he planted. Last week I finally managed to load up all of his old photography equipment and take it to this wonderful non-profit that will help make sure it goes to people who really will appreciate it, it filled up my entire pickup truck.
Afterwards I was just running some errands and suddenly this thought jumped into my head. I just gave all that stuff he loved away. And all of a sudden I felt the biggest wave of grief, I felt in quite a while over these relatively mundane things that I would never use anyway. I realized I’m never going to stop grieving.
The thing is, though, grieving is also part of how we live love. It keeps the love alive in us. Grieving makes love almost infinite, and we need it to be able to continue loving even more fiercely. I am so lucky to have fallen in love again with someone who intrinsically understands this.
Well, so much of what I’ve been talking about with our closest loved ones in our lives is also very similar to how we live love out in our communities, in our church, even in the workplace.
What if we made a covenant with ourselves about how we want to be in the world. About how we will treat our co-workers, the strangers we encounter, the checkout clerk, the waiter at the restaurant with that same presence, compassion, and kindness. What if we were to check in with them about how they’re doing, remembering that we can never know what is going on in someone elses life. I want to show you a video that was a powerful reminder of this for me.
Video
“Look at everything they have.”
“Look at him. They’re so young.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Excuse us.”
“Oh, let’s get you a treat.”
“Throw a tantrum and why not offer him a treat? That’s the trouble with kids today. Parents don’t parent anymore.”
“You’ll be his third foster family. So we’ll give him some time to feel safe with you. He’s been through a lot of abuse. Gosh, but if you have any questions, please let me know.”
“Thank you.”
Hey, buddy Do you want to go get something to eat? Do you want to go see your new home and we can eat there or we can go eat at a restaurant? You pick.”
“That’s a nice car.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“You take food stamps, right?”
“Unbelievable. Lunching off the government at your driver’s sports car. Nice.”
“Thank you so much for letting me borrow your car again and watching him.”
“No problem. You’ve been through a lot and I’m so happy to help, anything to help while you’re trying to get back on your feet.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it.”
“Bye! Bye!”
Video ends
Well this brings me to the question of how do we live love in the current social and political environment in which we find ourselves? Certainly it involves doing what so many of you already have, showing up, joining the marches, the protests, the vigils, making the phone calls, writing the letters and email messages, doing the visits with government officials.
Now though, now I think making love a verb involves even more. It means offering shelter and support to those who have less privilege and are under assault by our own government. It means doing so, even knowing it could place ourselves and our own privilege at great risk. It means continuing to speak out, even knowing that we may be attacked and harmed for doing so as we’ve witnessed in the aftermath of the appalling murder of Charlie Kirk.
I have been horrified by the efforts of so many to deified this man who I consider my oppressor. He has said such cruel things about gay people and so many others. He advocated policies that would cause us great harm. I have been horrified by the attacks on people who have simply labeled his words and actions for what they were even while condemning his murder. And the whole thing has brought up this question for me.
Does fierce love require me to love even my oppressors despite the outrage I feel at the same time?
I returned recently to a video from activist Valerie Kaur. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack of 9 /11, her friend and Sikh spiritual mentor, Bobir Singh Sodhi, had been killed during a series of hate crimes. His killer must took him for a Muslim because of the headdress that he wore. Here is how Kaur describes returning to the site of his murder accompanied by his brother Rana and how they discovered that finding a way to love even our enemies is rooted in loving ourselves first.
Video
So, I returned to the gas station where Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed, 15 years to the day. I sat down a candle in the spot where he bled to death. His brother Rana turned to me and said, “Nothing has changed.”
And I asked, “Who have we not yet tried to love?”
We decided to call the murderer in prison. The phone rings. My heart is beating in my ears. I hear the voice of Frank Roke, a man who once said, “I’m going to go out and shoot some towel heads. We should kill their children too.”
And every emotional impulse in me says I can’t. It becomes an act of will to wonder why. I ask, “Why did you agree to speak with us?”
Frank says, “I’m sorry for what happened, but I’m also sorry for all the people killed on 9/11.”
He fails to take responsibility. I become angry to protect Rana.
But Rana is still wondering about Frank, Listening, responds, “Frank, this is the first time I’m hearing you say that you feel sorry.”
And Frank, Frank says, “Yes, I am sorry for what I did to your brother. One day, when I go to heaven to be judged by God, I will ask to see your brother, and I will hug him, and I will ask him for forgiveness.”
And Rana says, “We already forgave you.”
Video ends
I don’t know if I could do that. I don’t know if I’m strong enough yet. Maybe though, maybe I can turn it over to that fierce love that flows through our universe and through me. Maybe I can know that Charlie Kirk was loved, and maybe I can forgive even my oppressors because I do that for myself, and to be a channel and a tributary for that greater ocean of love.
Perhaps Living Love, when it comes to those with whom I disagree, even those who would be my oppressors simply means making myself recognize their humanity even when they are refusing to recognize mine.
Perhaps love and outrage are not mutually exclusive. And as womanist theologians such as Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis remind us, it starts by truly embracing our own humanity, loving ourselves ferociously. As she writes, “Loving yourself unconditionally is a tall order, but as a daily practice, it’s essential.”
And so I actually returned to our stewardship campaign and its theme this year. My beloveds, we don’t support this church with our time, treasure, and talent to build a social club. We don’t even do it entirely because it feels good and gives us a sense of belonging though community is a part of it. We commit ourselves because this is where we come to learn and practice how to live love fiercely, ferociously, fearlessly in our lives, in our world, in our very souls. Because it starts with love for ourselves. It starts with us.
Amen.
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
For our benediction today I offer you the words from Muslim scholar and spiritual teacher Omid Safi
Go be your best self,
be your most beautiful self,
be your luminous self,
be your most generous self,
be your most radically loving self.
And when you fall short of that,
as we all do, as we all have,
bounce back and return.
And return again.
There is a grace in this returning
to your luminous, loving self.
May the congregation say amen and blessed be.
Go forth and live love.
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