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