The Power of Utopian Thinking

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Carrie Holley-Hurt
March 17, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Things feel very bleak right now. There is so much violence, so much political corruption, and so much inequality that it can feel overwhelming. But our religion is not one of despair but hope and that hope is tied to our ability to imagine a more just and compassionate world for everyone. Utopian thinking is our superpower! Let’s explore our superpower and how we can tap into it even when we feel overwhelmed by the world’s pain.


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

HISTORY’S ROAD
by Clyde Grubbs and Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley

The road of history is long, full of both hope and disappointment. In times past, there have been wars and rumors of wars, violence and exploitation, hunger and homelessness, and destruction of this earth, your creation.

We have become a global village, with a growing realization of how fragile this earth is, and how interconnected we are to each other and to all creation.

We cannot continue to live in the old way. We must make a change, seek a new way. A way toward peace with justice and a healthy planet.

O Great Creative Spirit: You have given a vision of the good, and we yearn for a new way. But where are we to find the courage to begin this work? We know that a different tomorrow is possible, but how can we build it?

We think of the prophets, women and men, who voiced unpopular opinions, who made personal sacrifices, and sometimes lost their lives, for the sake of justice.

We think of Isaiah, who called out to let those who are held in captivity go free, to give solace to the poor and homeless. Let us be inspired by all who work to overcome misery, poverty, and exploitation.

We think of Harriet Tubman, who called out to people of good will to join her on an underground railroad, to lift a dehumanized people from the bondage of slavery to the promise of freedom, even when it meant challenging unjust laws. Let us be inspired by those who are outlaws for freedom.

We think of Gandhi, whose belief in “Soul Force” – the witness to Love’s Truth – helped to overthrow the oppression of an empire and gave witness to the way of nonviolent action. Let us be inspired to become witnesses for peace.

We think of Chief Seattle, who reminded us that we belong to the earth, not the earth to us. Let us be inspired by all those who work for the healing of creation, of Mother Earth and all her creatures.

Who are the prophets who inspire you? They may be well known, or known only to you, offering personal inspiration. courage, and hope.

May they join a great cloud of witnesses to a new way of life-the way of peace and justice, the way of justice lived according to the way of peace, the beloved community.

So may it be. Amen.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

V’AHAVTA
By Aurora Levins Morales

Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up,

when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning and in times of joy. Inscribe them on your doorposts, embroider them on your garments, tattoo them on your shoulders,

teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies, recite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:

Another world is possible.

Imagine winning. This is your sacred task. This is your power.

Imagine every detail of winning, the exact smell of the summer streets in which no one has been shot,

the muscles you have never unclenched from worry, gone soft as newborn skin, the sparkling taste of food when we know that no one on earth is hungry, that the beggars are fed, that the old man under the bridge and the woman wrapping herself in thin sheets in the backseat of a car,

and the children who suck on stones, nest under a flock of roofs that keep multiplying their shelter.

Lean with all your being towards that day when the poor of the world shake down a rain of good fortune out of the heavy clouds, and justice rolls down like waters.

Defend the world in which we win as if it were your child. It is your child. Defend it as if it were your lover. It is your lover.

When you inhale and when you exhale breathe the possibility of another world into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body until it shines with hope.

Then imagine more. Imagine [violence] is unimaginable. Imagine war is a scarcely credible rumor.

That the crimes of our age, the grotesque inhumanities of greed, the sheer and astounding shamelessness of it, the vast fortunes made by stealing lives, the horrible normalcy it came to have, is unimaginable to our heirs, the generations of the free. Don’t waver.

Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth into the throat with which you sing.

Escalate your dreams. Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way. Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.

Hold hands. Share water.

Keep imagining. So that we, and the children of our children’s children may live.

Sermon

I went a long time sleeping-in on Sundays, not calculating annual pledges, or attending a congregational meeting. And then I became a UU

and all that changed.

And it’s good. I get to be a part of this beautiful community of like-hearted people.

I’m connected to amazing people all over the place doing good work And in this crazy mixed-up social-political landscape we have, I am way more hopeful than I was when I was on my own.

I’m so grateful,

But
But what makes us different than a social club?

I could find meaning and connection at a social club and probably sleep in on Sundays.

I want, and I think we should all expect, more from our religion than what a social club can offer

I believe that we have that

I’m a firm believer that we should allow our religion to do two things for us.

First, it should motivate us to do the important work of love. With beloved community at our core, this looks like working to get ourselves free and helping to remove barriers so others can be free too.

Secondly, our religion should hold us. Through tough and scary times, our religion should hold us. It should comfort us and renew us.

That is what our religion can do for us, but so often I think we can get out of balance. I know I often feel very motivated to act but very rarely allow this beautiful religion to comfort me.

And I need that – that comfort and that renewal – because y’all things are not great and often they are pretty overwhelming.

We have many tools in our religion that help us to feel both motivated and held, but the one I’m connecting to most right now is Utopian thinking.

But first let’s establish what that means and what I don’t mean.

I don’t mean … the utopian thinking that led to 19th-century communes. You know, those ones that pop up on the History Channel from time to time, occasionally led by Unitarians.

The ones that inevitably failed because of some scandal to do with sex or money or sex and money.

Yeah, thats not what I mean.

What I mean is the way of thinking that says “the way it is, isn’t the way it has to be.” And in fact, as Aurora Levins Morales wrote in our reading, “Another world is possible.”

A world that is more just, more compassionate, and more loving.

That world is possible. The way things are, isn’t the way things have to be.

This kind of thinking is at the very core of our religion.

And it makes sense, after all, we are a very contrarian people.

And we have been for our entire history.

Just think about it.

Early Unitarians in the 16th century said in a sea of Trinitarians, often at great risk to themselves, I don’t find that in my text.

Universalists said, I know hell is a really effective marketing tool but how could a loving god ever ….

At a time when the entire economy of the US was fueled by trafficking, imprisonment and forced labor of human beings, unitarian and universalist abolitionists said- it doesn’t have to be this way.

The fight for universal suffrage – it doesn’t have to be this way
Those fighting Jim Crow said – it doesn’t have to be this way.
Those fighting for queer rights- it doesn’t have to be this way

When we speak of the Beloved community, we tap into that core, we are practicing Utopian thinking.

The beloved community –

when no one is starving or being murdered in Gaza,
no one is getting cut up by razor wire at the border,
no trans kid is being murdered.
No boys are having to bear the cost of anti-blackness and ableism,
No one unhoused.
No one abused.
No one neglected.
No one abandoned.

That is Utopian thinking

And it is a beautiful thing that is the core of our religion.

And certainly many would tell us we are absurd or naive

but I would just say to those people ….

Try being a Unitarian Universalist in Texans

It is not naive to believe that how things are is not how it has to be.

Rutger Bregman a Dutch historian said:

“I’ve always believed in the power of utopian thinking. Every milestone of civilization – the end of slavery, (the creation of) democracy, (the attainment of) equal rights – these were all utopian fantasies once until they happened. That’s why I think that history is actually the most subversive discipline of all the social sciences because history shows us that things can be different. They don’t have to be this way. We can change them.”

“We can change them” this is heart of our religion and it does so much for us! 

 

It allows us a different way of looking at time, at our purpose, and our actions by placing them in the larger scheme of things.

For example. When it comes to the Beloved Community, we know that we are mostly planting seeds for a forest we will never see. But when we do that work of building the beloved community, we are bringing some of that utopia into the here and the now.

When we go down to witness what is happening at the border, When we use our sacred spaces as a sanctuary for asylum seekers

When we make our churches open and loving spaces for people who are targeted for oppression and marginalization.

When we show up to places of power and tell them “another world is possible”

We are bringing that Utopian thinking down into the lives of those being harmed in the here and now.

It is powerful stuff!

And it is core to who we are as people in a liberating faith.

But in order to utilize this beautiful, life-giving aspect of our faith, we have to make it a spiritual practice.

First, we do this by spending time in the community envisioning what is possible.

What would it actually look like if we treated everyone as if they had inherent dignity and worthiness? If we lived, worked, spoke, like everyone and everything is interconnected.

Learning from one another opens us up to the diversity of lived experience and needs, allowing us, in community, to envision a much deeper and richer future. We can envision a reality that expands past our individual needs.

Secondly, we nourish our vision so that we counteract the pervasive messages of the status quo that says “that how things are is just the nature of things.”

Bregman says

“There’s nothing inherent about our current political, economic and social realities; people made these systems and can make them anew. To envision something novel, read more history and less news. “There’s nothing as anti-utopian as the product that we call the news,”

He says that when we allow ourselves to get caught up in the “sensationalistic daily news cycle” it “can constrict your ability to see the world as anything but dangerous, violent and mean.” 

 

So as we nourish our vision, by being intentional about where we are placing our focus. What are we doing to combat those pervasive messages of sameness?

What art are we interacting with? Are we making?

Art opens us up to possibilities and different way of seeing and experiencing the world.

Are we reading poetry?

Are we letting Amanda Gordan, Mary Oliver, Maya Angelo mirror our humanity while inspiring us to hope.

Are we writing our own poetry.

Our we taking our pain, our hope, our vision for the future and turning it into art on the page?

What music are you allowing to flow into and out of you?

Who are we spending our time with or listening to ?

Nothing will help to pull me out of my Hobbesian notion of human nature being only nasty, brutish, and short faster than a 5-year-old asking me what my third favorite dinosaur is. Or the way high schoolers use their voices to speak up for one another and protest injustice.

Are we doom-scrolling or are we intentionally being awakened to the beauty, joy, and love in the people and creatures all around us?

We will not nurture utopian thinking by living on a constant diet of the status quo. Seeing it as a spiritual practice, means we are intentional and disciplined about what we are focusing our energy on.

And finally, we let Utopian thinking nourish us!

So often I think that we UUs feel as if we are suppose to just do it. Just go fight the good fight.

And while, yes, please do that.

We have to let it do more. We have to let it nourish us.

Because if we are only fighting the good fight without replenishing ourselves we are vulnerable to burnout.

To apathy.

We have to let it nourish us!

Let it nourish us in the ways that it anchors our hope.

Let it nourish us in the way it anchors us to the past, present, and the future.

The whole arc of the moral universe.

In this it will help us to stop seeing every election and every bill as the next apocalypse because we can see the full expanse of the work.

We can see the ways our actions are connected to the larger web that holds us all.

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

And now as we go to leave this place, may you feel the warmth of this beautiful community.

May you feel motivated, supported, and held by this beautiful religion. May you hold yourself and others with love and compassion

Just as you are held.

Let it comfort us, strengthen us, and give us energy for this beautiful work we are called to do and this precious life we are given.

May it remind us that we are a people not of despair but of hope.

May it always 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

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

Mary and Lou among the Cypress Trees: Stories of Transformation

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Bis Thorton
March 3, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

What is sacred about transformation? Does the divine change alongside us? What is our relationship to the interconnected web of all existence when we transform? Do we still have ancestors if we change? And do we ever stay the same? Join Bis Thornton in a journey through sacred stories of transformation as we imagine answers to these questions and more.


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 PROMISE AND THE PRACTICE: BENEDICTION #2
Rev. Kimberlly Quinn Johnson

Hush:
Somebody’s calling your name-
Can you hear it!
Calling you to a past not quite forgotten,
Calling us to a future not fully imagined!
Hush, hush:
Somebody’s calling our name.
What shall we do!

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

CARRY ME INTO THE DARK
Jess Reynolds

Orion rises in the winter dark: shoulders and knees: a bell, a bow held taut before the charging bull. My father calls each star by its name, draws lines from hunter to quarry to the seven sisters huddled together in the night. I am not afraid of the dark. I do not need an arrow nocked on the archer’s bow to call myself safe here, my eyes untouched by the glare of passing headlights. God must watch Her universe like this: standing on a driveway, wrapped in a soft quilt, old hands in Her pockets. feet tingling with cold and wonder at the stars and the stories and all else the darkness holds.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.


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

Wholly Spirited

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and OWL Facilitators
Kinsey Shackelford, Amanda Ray, Isaac Braman-Ray, and Elizabeth Gray
February 18, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our Whole Lives (OWL) is the nationally renowned sexuality education program rooted in our faith values. Developed jointly by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church Board of Homeland Ministries, OWL includes age-appropriate curricula for people from kindergarten through older adulthood. Come and find out about how OWL is an essential element of our faith development ministries here at First UU Austin and the differences it is making in the lives of people in our religious community and beyond.


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

By Elizabeth Canfield
From OWL Facilitator Training

I’ve often wondered what it would be like if we taught young people swimming in the same way we teach sexuality. If we told them that swimming was an important adult activity, one they will all have to be skilled at when they grow up, but we never talked with them about it. We never showed them the pool. We just allowed them to stand outside closed doors and listen to all the splashing. Occasionally, they might catch a glimpse of partially clothed people going in and out of the door to the pool and maybe they’d find a hidden book on the art of swimming, but when they asked a question about how swimming felt or what it was about, they would be greeted with blank or embarrassed looks.

Suddenly, when they turned 18, we would fling open the doors to the pool and they would jump in. Miraculously, some might learn to tread water, but many would drown.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Anthem

“BREATHS” Lyrics
Ysaye Barnwell

Chorus:
Listen more often to things than to beings
Listen more often to things than to beings
‘Tis the ancestor’s breath when the fire’s voice is heard
‘Tis the ancestor’s breath in the voice of the water.

Those who have died have never, never left
The dead are not under the earth
They are in the rustling trees
They are in the groaning woods
They are in the crying grass,
They are in the moaning rocks
The dead are not under the earth.

CHORUS

Those who have died have never never left.
The dead have a pact with the living.
They are in the woman’s breast,
They are in the wailing child
They are with us in our homes.
They are with us in the crowd
The dead have a pact with the living.

CHORUS

Reading

The UUA and The United Church Board of Homeland Ministries

From The Advocacy Manual for Sexuality Education, Health and Justice; resources for communities of faith

It is our religious heritages that compel and guide us to create a safe environment within which people can come to understand and respond to the challenges facing them as sexual beings. We are grounded as faith communities in a common and continuing promotion of justice for all people. We affirm the dignity of the individual, the importance of personal responsibility, and the essential interdependence of all people.

We believe that humans seek meaning in life and organize into religious communities to pursue meaning as a common endeavor. We believe that sexuality can enrich life and is thus an essential concern of religious communities. We recognize that people can encounter the spiritual through sexual expression.

Therefore, we believe the religious community must take an active role in the promotion of education and justice in human sexuality. To accomplish this, religious communities must engage in a wide range of activities and address the whole person through worshipping, nurturing, educating, supporting, challenging, advocating, confronting, forgiving, and healing.

Sermon

WHOLLY SPIRITED

Kinsey Shackleford

Kinsey: Hi there, I’m Kinsey. I use she /her pronouns. I am a white woman with dark blonde hair, rainbow earrings, and a striped shirt. I am First UU Austin’s OWL Coordinator. I was first introduced to OWL when I began working here at the church, and soon was trained to be a facilitator for grades K-12. Last spring, I taught a class of Kindergarteners and 1st graders, whom you’ll hear from in a moment. I’m currently one of the four fabulous facilitators for the 5th and 6th OWL class. I love teaching OWL because it fights shame and stigma. Shame of our bodies, shame of our families, shame of who we love and how we identify. Liz Jones, former Director of Religious Education at First UU San Diego, says it best:

“By honestly and openly addressing sexuality in appropriate ways we are honoring them as whole people. We acknowledge their worth and dignity. Through offering our sexuality program, we not only honor each individual, but through knowledge we help each other along the path to respecting and honoring those who are different from ourselves.”

 

I believe this work changes lives. I believe the kind of education and open conversations about sexuality and right relationships with one another, the kind that happens in OWL leads to better quality of life. But don’t just listen to me, listen to those kids who have gone through the OWL program. Thank you for your time today.

Student 1: Please watch!

Kinsey: So, teach us OWL real quick.

Student 2: (writing on a chalkboard) these are kids. They want to go to OWL, but they don’t know anything about OWL. We would have to show them, tell them, and give them an idea of what it’s like.

Kinsey: What do you remember about OWL class?

Student 2: I remember we talked about our bodies.

Kinsey: What about our bodies?

Student 1: How babies are made!

Student 2: And our private parts.

Student 1: It’s meant for questions.

Kinsey: What would you say to someone who said “I don’t wanna take OWL”

Student 1: I’d say, you should take OWL, you can learn more about your body. And if they said no…

Student 2: I’d be like, too bad!

Student 1: I’d say, it has some really interesting stuff in it. You get to do crafts…and yeah, fun stuff!

Kinsey: What do you think is the most important thing that you learned from OWL?

Student 2: Probably that…

Student 1: How babies are made!

Student 2: Probably that there are so many secrets to unfurl… and we don’t even know a lot, like do the sperms and eggs have names like ‘hi, I’m Johnson!’ or ‘hi, I’m Linguine!'”

Kinsey: What did you learn about gender identity and pronouns when you were in OWL?

Student 2: If you have a vagina, they call you a girl from birth. If you have a penis, they call you a boy from birth.

Kinsey: Is that always the case?

Student 1: No.

Student 2: No, it’s not.

Kinsey: Sometimes it is and that’s okay! Sometimes it isn’t…

Family Member: And that’s okay too.

Kinsey: If you were talking to a kindergartener who was thinking about going to OWL, what would you say to them?

Student 2: I’d say OWL is a very good place to learn about your body. Penis or no penis, vagina or no vagina, you will learn more about it if you go to OWL.

Student 2: (drawing on the board, one tall person and one short person): Here’s us.

Family Member: You’re so much bigger than the kindergartener.

Student 1: Yeah!

Captioned on screen: Drawing different types of families…in OWL, we learn that love makes a family.

Kinsey: Should more people take OWL?

Both kids: Yes!

Student 2: It’s fun and you get to learn more about your body and how bodies work.

Student 1: Yeah…and how babies are made.

Caption on screen: You heard it from the students, now come and learn for yourself! Visit austinuu.org for more information.

Amanda Ray and Isaac Braman-Ray

Elizabeth Gray:

Back in 2009, along with my husband Eugene, I participated in an Adult OWL class taught by Michael West and Barb Tuttle, both members of this church.

 

Oprah Magazine sent out a journalist to report on us, since Adult Sex Ed was apparently a thing, and they wanted to write about it. When the article was published online, I read the comments. I remember one disparaging remark “Why do adults have to meet in a church basement to learn how to have sex?” Well, I thought-first, we are in Texas and our church doesn’t have a basement! But indeed, why do adults-grown ups!–need to learn about sex–what do they not already know?

Why are there three comprehensive OWL curricula for adults:

  • Young Adults (ages 18-35)
  • Adults (ages 36-50)
  • Older Adults (over 50)

Young adults need accurate information, they are increasing their self-knowledge, and need help with safety and strengthening interpersonal skills.

The Adult curriculum

  • uses values, communication skills, and spirituality as starting points,
  • builds an understanding of healthy sexual relationships,
  • affirms diversity, and
  • helps participants accept and honor their own sexuality throughout their lives.

 

The Older Adult classes address sexuality with candor, sensitivity, and respect for older adults’ wisdom and life experience. Or put another way, the Adult OWL classes meet participants where they are:

  • How can I enjoy sex if I’m struggling with infertility and it feels like work,
  • not pleasure?
  • How do I manage being a parent and a sexual person?
  • How do I enjoy my sexuality if I’ve lost a breast to cancer?
  • Can I feel sexually satisfied if I am alone-if I don’t have a partner?”
  • What happens to my sexuality if I or my partner no longer want the intimate
  • activities we enjoyed in the past?

 

Your sexuality doesn’t end because you are alone, divorced or widowed, unwell, disabled, over 60, or just too tired tonight. Sexuality is part of who we all are at our core. It must be integrated into our spirituality because for UUs, spirituality is about wholeness.

And yes, back to that group in the church basement, when you take an Adult OWL class you are very likely to learn something you didn’t know.

As an OWL instructor, I never want to let an opportunity pass for us to learn about our sexuality. Here’s an example:

Image

The picture is a fist-sized pink object that looks sort of like a sensual sculpture of an orchid flower.

Shout it out if you recognize what this is.

That’s right, it’s an anatomically correct model of a clitoris, probably more detailed than what was in your high school biology textbook.

Sexuality. It really is Our. Whole. Lives.

Rev Chris Jimmerson:

I wanted you to know their great work and how vital the OWL program is to our faith and this church – the difference it makes for folks’ human and spiritual development.

 

I believe OWL is one of our faith’s and our church’s greatest contributions to nourishing souls, transforming lives, and doing justice.

And as your newly installed settled minister, I wanted emphasize, as so many know, that this and our other great religious education offerings are not something that just happens back there in that other part of the church.

They are vital to us living our our values and mission.

I want to bring RE into the sanctuary and into the entire life of the church and visa versa. So, I wanted you to hear about OWL today because it matters. It is integral to our faith.

You know, sometimes we say that our children and youth are the future of our UU faith and our church. To that I would add – they are also our UU faith and our church right now.

I am so grateful for work this church does in religious education and bursting at the seems proud of our OWL program. They bring our faith alive and move it toward the future about which we dream.

And amen to that. May you know, peace, love, and joy.

Benediction

As we go back out into our world today, may you be held by the love of this religious community throughout the moments of your daily lives.

Until next we gather again in this place that is sacred to us, may we experience the holy amidst all we encounter.

May the congregation say, “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

Chris Jimmerson’s Installation

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson and a Host of Invited Clergy
February 17, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We come together as a church family with clergy and guests to joyfully celebrate Rev Chris Jimmerson’s formal intallation as our setted minister.


WELCOME: Gretchen Riehl

GREETINGS: Natalie Briscoe

CHALICE LIGHTING – Rev. Neil Newton

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: Rev. Kathleen Ellis

READING: Rev Jonalu Johnstone

“THAT WHICH HOLDS ALL”
by Nancy Shaffer

Because she wanted everyone to feel included
in her prayer,
she said right at the beginning
several names for the Holy:
Spirit, she said, Holy One, Mystery, God.

But then thinking these weren’t enough ways of addressing
that which cannot fully be addressed, she added
particularities, saying,
Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love,
Ancient Holy One, Mystery We Will Not Ever Fully Know,
Gracious God, and also Spirit of this Earth,
God of Sarah, Gaia, Thou.

And then, tongue loosened, she fell to naming
superlatives as well: Most Creative One,
Greatest Source, Closest Hope –
even though superlatives for the Sacred seemed to her
probably redundant, but then she couldn’t stop:

One who Made the Stars, she said, although she knew
technically a number of those present didn’t believe
the stars had been made by anyone or thing
but just luckily happened.

One Who Is an Entire Ocean of Compassion,
she said, and no one laughed.
That Which Has Been Present Since Before the Beginning,
she said, and the room was silent.

Then, although she hadn’t imagined it this way,
others began to offer names.

Peace, said one.
One My Mother Knew, said another.
Ancestor, said a third.
Wind.
Rain.
Breath, said one near the back.
Refuge.
That Which Holds All.
A child said, Water.
Someone said, Kuan Yin.
Then: Womb.
Witness.
Great Kindness.
Great Eagle.
Eternal Stillness.

And then, there wasn’t any need to say the things
she’d thought would be important to say,
and everyone sat hushed, until someone said

Amen.

PRAYER – MEDITATION – INVOCATION: Rev. Michelle LaGrave

ANTHEM: Brent Baldwin, voice, and guitar

“I STILL BELIEVE”
Dolly Parton

SERMON: “Exercises in Attention” – Rev. Dr. Nicole Kirk

ACT OF INSTALLATION

 

Gretchen Riehl:
No right is more precious to a free congregation than that of choosing its own minister. By the same token, no right is more precious to a Unitarian Universalist minister than that of choosing the congregation they will serve. This is fundamental to our sacred tradition of shared leadership.

 

It is with profound feeling, therefore, that we formally recognize the covenantal relationship now existing between the people of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin and the Reverend Chris Jimmerson, whom we have freely chosen and who has freely chosen us.

Our choice is based not only on heritage but also on the hopes and aspirations we have for the future. This service symbolizes our dedication to new efforts.

We affirm by this act the goals toward which we strive and the ideals by which we are sustained and strengthened. Will the members of The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin please rise and join me in the following words.

Members:
We cherish our church for its historic achievements and for its dedication to our living traditions in which revelation is ever unfolding.

We celebrate its devotion to freedom and its commitment to building the Beloved Community.

We, the members of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, do hereby install you, Reverend Chris Jimmerson, as our settled minister.

For our part, we pledge to walk with you in the ways of truth, justice, and the spirit of love. We offer you a free pulpit, the cooperation of our hearts and hands, and our resolute goodwill as you take up your new path among us.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson:
With joy and a deep sense of responsibility, and with gratitude for your confidence, I take up the ministry to which you have called me.

I pledge to maintain the freedom of the pulpit, to speak truth in love, and to fulfill the many duties of ministry. Above all, I will cherish and cultivate the ways of love, justice, spiritual nourishment, and growth, working with you toward transformation within these church walls and beyond them.

I humbly and joyfully accept your offer of covenantal relationship and shared ministry.

Gretchen Riehl:
Will all who have not yet risen – colleagues, family, and friends please rise in spirit or in body to bear witness to this act of installation?

All:
We do hereby affirm this installation and this ministry. May congregation and minister both be blessed with strength and wisdom in the years of holy work ahead.

 

 

PRESENTATION OF GIFTS: Gretchen Riehl and Susan Thomson

CHARGE TO THE MINISTER Rev. Joanna Crawford

CHARGE TO THE CONGREGATION Rev. Dr. John A. Buehrens

CLOSING MUSIC Introduced by Rev. Michelle LaGrave

“ALL WILL BE WELL”
Rev. Meg Barnhouse and Kiya Heartwood

EXTINGUISHING THE CHALICE Rev. Lee Legault

BENEDICTION: Rev. Chris Jimmerson


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

Public Affairs Forum

Upcoming Speakers

 
Sunday, January 21 – Attorney, Liz Nielsen
                     “Wills, Directives and Other End of Living Planning”
         
Sunday, February 25 – Texas State Representative Vikki Goodwin (House District 47)
                      “The Texas Legislature – 2023; The state of Texas – 2024”
 
Sunday, March 24 – Gus Bova, Assistant Editor, Texas Observer
                      “The Texas Observer, Non-Profit Journalism and Its Future” 
 
Sunday, April 14  – Austin Mayor Kirk Watson
                      “The City of Austin – Growth and Challenges”
 
 

Talkin’ bout a Revolution

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
February 11, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In our mission, we say that we “do justice”. What if truly doing justice requires not just new ways of thinking but new ways of being? Equity instead of equality? Liberation versus liberalism? Proximity rather than paternalism? What if we moved beyond charitable compassion to a love that is revolutionary?


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

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! – and listens to their testimony. – James Baldwin

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

– Howard Zinn

Sermon

I want to share something with you.

VIDEO

That’s Danez Smith, award winning poet, writer, and performer who identifies as queer, non-binary, and HIV positive.

It is part of their poem “Principles”.

If you get the chance, it is well worth watching the rest of their performance, which you can find on YouTube. Their words demand to be heard.

Because Danez Smith isn’t calling for incremental fixes to a country filled with so many systems of oppression and denial that we can no longer believe that those systems are “broken”.

When year after year, we witness the continued killing of unarmed BIPoe folks by law enforcement – When one out of every seven police interventions results in bodily injury – When we know that one out of every eight black person in the U.S. will be sent to prison –

When year after year after year, despite both so called liberal and so called conservative interventions, inequities by race, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation and more continue to persist in employment, income, wealth, housing, healthcare, education, food and nutrition, well just about every facet of life in the U.S., every system and sector of our society, we have to face the reality that these systems are not broken.

They are functioning exactly as they are intended.

They are concentrating more and more wealth and power within the control of fewer and fewer folks.

And still, most of them white. Most of them male. Most of them heterosexual. Most of them Cis. Most of them already born into power and wealth to begin with.

That’s the system.

So, Danez Smith is crying out not to repair America around the edges, but to replace our fundamental societal structures with something entirely new that lives up to the values of justice, liberty, and the potential for human dignity and fulfillment we claim to hold.

Here is more of what they have to say:

i want to be a citizen of something new.
i want a country for the immigrant hero.
i want a country where joy is indigenous as the people.
i want a country that keeps its word.
i want to not be scared to drink the water …
i want a country not trying to cure itself of me …
I want a nation under a kinder god.
I want justice the verb not justice the dream.”

Danez Smith is “talkin bout a revolution”. My words, not theirs.

Well, those of Traci Chapman in the lyrics of her song we heard earlier.

And so, if are to make justice a verb, to do justice as we say in our mission, if we are to tear down the systems of injustice we have now and build new ones – build The Beloved community – we need a revolution in our ways of thinking and being in our world.

Folks as diverse as Bryan Stevenson, social justice activist and law professor to faith activist Rev. William Barber, provide what I think are at least fours ways in which we can create that revolution.

The first is to root our work for justice in a theology that moves and sustains us.

Now that word theology can sometimes freak out some Unitarian Universalists (UUs for short) because it can imply a creedal belief system involving a God or Gods.

But it does not have to involve these things.

Rev. Dr. Elias Ortega, of our UU Meadville Lombard Theological School describes how theology can be “practices of being, thinking, and acting in the world” that move us toward that which we hold most vital.

For Unitarian Universalism, our theology grows out of traditions embracing the unity of all life and creation and a universal love that flows through our universe and our lives.

Our is a living, ever evolving theology of collective liberation, that values all people and beings, especially lifting up those of us who experience marginalization and inequity.

It is a relational theology that recognizes that each of us can only reach for our fullest creative potential when all of us are able to do so.

In the famous words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

We need one another.

The revolution, the Beloved community, can only become when it is co-created by us all.

And such a theology moves us to the second way we might build a justice revolution.

In the late 80s and early 90s, I was involved in non-profit HIV / AIDS research, education, treatment and humans services.

All greatly needed because so many people were suffering and dying from the disease.

And even though I could see every day how much this charitable work was necessary, I started to grow more and more depressed and disillusioned, as more and more people I had come to know and love died, one after the other.

I remember at one point looking through my contact list and realizing that at least a third of the people in it had died of the disease.

And so I began to realize that only providing charitable support, as much as it was needed, was doing nothing to address the systemic racism and anti-LGBTQ bigotry that were blocking people from learning how to keep from getting the disease in the first place and accessing treatment once exposed.

I began to see the complete lack of humanity in a healthcare system and drug development process that exist to worship the Gods of profit at the expense human life and wellbeing.

And so I knew I had to also get involved in activism and building new systems to replace those that were quite literally killing people.

Research from Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation reveals that the vast majority of charity in the U.S. actually goes from the wealthy to the wealthy – to healthcare facilities, institutions of higher education and the like that serve mainly the very rich.

And as I had discovered with HIV/AIDS, charity, wherein most often the powerful determine what and how to give to the less powerful, can frequently serve to uphold systems of inequity by alleviating just enough pressure to prevent the rebellion against them that might otherwise arise.

As educator and philanthropic innovation researcher Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen says, “Charity is about helping people survive. Justice is about helping people thrive.”

A theology of collective liberation moves us beyond charitable compassion toward a revolutionary love that dismantles the unjust systems creating the need for charity in the first place.

And this leads us to a third and corresponding way we can revolutionize how we do justice.

A relational theology requires us to be in proximity to those with whom we are trying to be in solidarity.

Mother Teresa once said, ” … it is fashionable to talk about the poor, it is not so fashionable to talk with them.”

We call for justice, yet we don’t want the multi-family, low cost housing project in our neighborhood.

We prefer to drive across town to volunteer for the charity health clinic.

And don’t put that homeless shelter in the old hotel down the street.

And lest we think this is a conservative versus liberal issue, research indicates that liberal enclaves are some of the most segregated in the country.

As our call to worship pointed out earlier though, to change systems, we have to be in conversation with those who are most affected by those systems.

And, further, collective liberation theology calls us to follow their lead.

In 2015, I joined a group ofUU’s from across the country in Selma, Alabama at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the march for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Several of the mostly white UU s there had to be told that, no, they would not be at the front of the commemorative march across that bridge.

The black folks who had organized the event and whose lives had after all been most affected by the history being remembered were perfectly capable of leading their own march.

Here’s an example of when we’ve done better.

First UU helped to form the Austin Sanctuary Network, and from the beginning the sanctuary network has centered in its leadership folks most affected by our inhumane immigration system.

Collective liberation theology moves us from paternalism to proximity.

Finally, I believe that our faith is strong enough, our underlying theology powerful enough, that it can sustain us through the discomfort in which we will have to dwell at times in our journey toward transformation.

Discomfort?

What in the world is Rev. Chris on about now?

Go with me for just a moment into some discomfort that exists right here within this here very church.

We have had a lot of surveys, listening sessions, and the like in the church over the last couple of years, haven’t we?

Well, some themes around where we feel discomfort have occasionally emerged.

For instance, we want First UU to be a strong force for justice in our world.

And there is some discomfort talking about politics in church.

But you know, a lot of what happens regarding justice or injustice, is enacted through legislation or through court rulings, both of which are driven by politics.

So, while we are prohibited from supporting political candidates or parties, we must move through any discomfort around justice-related political issues, whether in church or in the public arena.

I can assure you our fundamentalist faith counterparts have no such discomfort.

And further, given the need for revolutionary change that Danez Smith proclaims in their poem …

And given that far too often our political choices these days seem to be between regressivism at worst and painfully slow incrementalism at best, we will need even more than political engagement.

We will need more than protests and marches.

We will be required to dream of new societal systems and structures and to begin living out them out, sometimes in rebellious ways, within our daily lives.

And that can be extremely uncomfortable for those of us for whom the current systems provide privilege.

As author and activist Arundhati Roy says of war, “Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe.”

UU theologian (and one of my favorite people), Sharon Welch, applies this to the many aspects of our lives in her book, “After the Protests are Heard“.

She writes that we must notice “the ways ways our everyday decisions already create more justice.”

And though that awareness may sometimes bring discomfort, changing even small acts in our daily lives, as our reading earlier described, germinates seeds of hope and transformation.

Here are some of Danez Smith’s thoughts on that hope.

VIDEO

My beloveds, rooted in faith, we can move the mountain. Sustained by a theology of liberation for all of us, every single one of us, now, now, we’re talkin’ bout a revolution.

Benediction

As we go out into our world now, may you carry with you a sense of the great river of love that flows through our universe and through each of us.

A revolutionary love that moves us toward equity, justice, and the realization of the Beloved Community.

May you also carry with you the love of this religious community, until next we are gathered again.

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Universal Love

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
January 21, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our Universalist heritage professed that God is love and would save everyone – “universal salvation”. No one would be condemned to hell. We have come to think of this as a universal love that calls us to “love the hell out of this!world” (thank you, Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford). Universal love calls us to create universal salvation in this world and in this time.


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 moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.”

– bell hooks

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

IF BELL HOOKS WROTE FIRST CORINTHIANS
Rev. Sr. Tess Baumberger

Love is caring, affectionate, and loyal
It recognizes, knows, and respects the other.
Love is committed and trusting.
Love takes the risk of loving
Love is never hurtful, abusive, or neglectful. It does not coerce or dominate, Neither does it spoil or over-indulge.
Love is ethical, accountable and responsible.
Love does not lie to avoid conflict or to manipulate.
Love does not lie to trick or deceive.
Love is open and honest, but with a positive slant.
Love lives with integrity that wills cooperation
Though it is satisfying to love, Love is not about getting one’s needs met, nor solely about meetings others’ needs. True love is made of mutuality.
Love is a generous giver, and in giving it learns to receive.
Love places another’s interest on the same footing as our own.
Love is not so much a feeling as an action, A continuing active choice to nurture another’s wellbeing.
There can be no love without justice and equality. Therefore love requires that we subvert patriarchy, white supremacy, consumerism, ableism, anti-queerness, and all other forms of oppression.

Sermon

“Love is the doctrine of our church: The quest of truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer. To dwell together in peace, To seek knowledge in freedom, To serve humanity in fellowship, To the end that all souls shall grow in harmony with the divine Thus do we covenant with each other.”

Those words are from a covenant written by early 20th century Universalist minister, Rev. L. Griswold Williams that many our our fellow Unitarian Universalist congregations still affirm during their worship service each Sunday, including our Texas sibling, First Unitarian Church of Dallas.

Actually, it originally ended with “Thus do we covenant with each other AND WITH GOD, but the God part got removed in many later versions because, rather than reclaiming the term, we seem to have sometimes developed an allergy to the word “God”. In fact some of our churches use a similar version of it, written by a Unitarian Minister, that begins with “Love is the SPIRIT of this church”, instead of “doctrine. Rather than reclaiming it, we also seem to have developed an allergy to the word “doctrine”.

But I digress. Anyway, I wanted to start with this heritage of centering our faith in covenant, the promises that we make to one another about how we will be together in the ways of love, which we inherit from both our Unitarian and Universalist forbearers.

Today we’ll be particularly considering how our Unitarian Universalist or UU faith has begun to much more explicitly reclaim also centering our faith in a theology of universal love, bequeathed to us by that second U, Universalism.

Now, this religious community, our church, has a covenant that we call our “Covenant of Healthy Relations”, which I think is wonderful, because it acknowledges that love is not just a feeling.

It is also a verb.

We have to know what actions we will take, how we can live out love as a religious community on an ongoing basis.

At our December congregational meeting, we adopted a new version of our covenant, as a result of the great work of our healthy relations team, Julie Paasche, Tomas Medina, and our lay leader this morning, Margaret Borden.

They listened carefully to you all, folks from the congregation and engaged with another in some great discussions to discern how our covenant might better help us embrace things like our UU 8th principle and its call for us to dismantle racism and oppression.

So to begin, I would like to invite Julie, Tomas, and Margaret to lead us in a unison reading of the result of their great work – the new version of our covenant.

As a religious community, we promise:

To Welcome and Serve by:

 

  • Being intentionally hospitable to all people of goodwill Celebrating all aspects of diversity
  • Treating others as they wish to be treated
  • Being present with one another through life’s transitions Encouraging the spiritual growth of people of all ages

 

To Nurture and Protect by:

 

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

 

To Sustain and Build by:

 

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

 

Many thanks to our wonderful healthy relations team! “Thus, do we covenant with one another.”

Thus, do we promise to dwell together in the ways of love.

And that love is love with a capital L – a Universal Love that we draw theologically from our Universalist heritage.

Now, differing variations of Christian Universalism go all the way back to the very earliest days of Christianity.

Universalism was, and for some still is, a belief that God is all loving and would never condemn any of us to an eternity of damnation in hell – that God would eventually offer salvation to all souls.

This is why the term All Souls often shows up in the names of some of our UU churches.

This idea that God’s love is pervasive and includes everyoneGod’s love is universal- shows up over and over again in some form throughout the history of Christian religion.

And the idea that God’s universal love leads inevitably to universal salvation has been extremely controversial, also throughout Christian history.

It turns out, a lot of people really hate it when you get rid of hell. More on that shortly.

It was here in America though that the IDEA of Universalism actually came to take the institutional form of churches and societies of churches.

Now, our origin myth and miracle story for how universalism came to America (and eventually our UU faith) involves John Murray, a Methodist preacher from England who had converted to Universalist beliefs there.

After the death of his first wife and their infant son, as well as then being thrown into debtors prison, a dispirited Murray, his faith in doubt, gave up preaching and immigrated to America in 1770.

Upon arriving on the American coast, Murray’s ship got grounded on a sandbar.

While waiting for his ship to get freed, Murray went ashore, where he met a farmer named Thomas Potter, who had built a chapel on his land to accommodate itinerant preachers.

Upon learning that Murray was a preacher, Potter was convinced that Murray had been sent by God to proclaim the gospel in his chapel.

Murray resisted, but Potter convinced him to preach if the ship was still not free by that Sunday.

God kept the ship stranded past Sunday (at least from Potter’s point of view), so Murray preached. He made such a great impression that he ended up getting invited to spread the good news of Universalism up and down the East coast of the American colonies, eventually founding a Universalist church in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

And like many if not most origin myths and miracle stories, this one is not entirely true.

It was more likely a seasonal lack of wind than God that got and kept Murray’s ship stranded.

Universalism had already taken root in several other religious sects in the colonies.

And, in fact, Murray didn’t even focus on Universal Love and Salvation in his preaching at first. It was more likely his charisma that got him invited to preach throughout the area, at least in the beginning.

So the story is more complicated than the way in which we often tell it. But complicated stories don’t make for very good miraculous origin myths!

Incidentally, it is absolutely true that we get a strong heritage of feminism from American Universalism.

Murray’s second wife, Judith Sargent Murray, was an essayist, poet, and playwright – in the 1700s.

She advocated for women’s progress, and, under pseudonyms, sometimes male, she published such articles as “Desultory Thoughts Upon the Utility of Encouraging a Degree of Self-Complacency, especially in Female Bosoms” and “On the Equality of the Sexes” in the 1700s!

In 1863, Olympia Brown became the first woman to gain full ministerial standing from any denomination in America when she was ordained by the Universalist Church.

Perhaps the most influential force in the development of Universalism though, was the self-educated minister, orator, debater and writer Hosea Ballou.

He espoused ultra-universalism, the idea that God would not condemn humans to hell for any period of time at all, which led to much controversy and conflict with more traditional Universalists who believed God would temporarily condemn the wicked to hell for some unspecified period of time before eventually saving all souls.

The leaders of other denominations that were firmly committed to hell as a means for controlling human behavior, REALLY hated the idea.

Ballou firmly asserted that God was the embodiment of eternal love and seeks the happiness of all humans. He was convinced that once people knew this, they would take pleasure in living a moral life and doing good works.

In a famous story, Ballou was traveling with a Baptist minister one afternoon. The Baptist minister looked at him and said, “Brother Ballou, if I were a Universalist and feared not the fires of hell, I could hit you over the head, steal your horse and saddle, and ride away, and I’d still go to heaven.”

To which Ballou replied, “If you were a Universalist, the idea would never occur to you.”

Another time, an elderly woman, firmly committed to religious beliefs involving the depravity of human nature queried Ballou on whether he frequently asked his parishioners, “0, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

Hosea Ballou responded, “No Madam. That class do not attend my church.”

I kind of feel that way about this church!

So, here is why I have given you this extremely brief and thoroughly incomplete taste, this smattering of stories from our Universalist inheritance.

As I mentioned earlier, our UU faith is reclaiming the relational, love-centered legacy of our Universalist heritage that has sometimes been overshadowed by the also extremely important focus on reason and individual autonomy of our Unitarian roots.

Though again, it is more completed than that. Both of our traditions contained elements of all of this and more.

Anyway in the time since our two Us merged in 1961, we have translated the Universalist concept of an all loving God, offering universal salvation after death, into a Universal Love that offers salvation in this world, in this life, in the here and now.

A Universal Love that like that big umbrella from our story earlier shelters us all under a shield of justice -love that when practiced moves us all toward liberation and freedom, as bell hooks wrote about.

The early 20th century Universalist minister and scholar Clarence Skinner wrote that Universalism answers the primal question of how we can “transform this old earth into the kingdom of heaven”.

My friend, the Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford, lead minister of LiveOak UU church, just says it calls us to “love the hell out of this world”.

Our UU theologian, Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker refers to what I am calling Universal Love as being “alive and afoot in the cosmos … ” In this church, we sometimes call it as a river of love that flows through our Universe.

We began the sermon today with exploring how our UU faith is centered in covenant.

The covenant that we make with our fellow UUs throughout our faith is contained in Article II of our Unitarian Universalist Association bylaws.

These are the promises that all UUs make with one another about how we will dwell together in the ways of love.

Well, for over 5 years, our larger UU faith has been engaging in a process to update that covenant between all UUs, just as we did for our church covenant, though we didn’t take nearly as long.

Now, I do not have time to go into the details today. You can find more information at www.uua.org

Here though, is a graphic representation of the values we would covenant to affirm and promote under this proposed update.

 Love Flower Graphic

Now being UUs, some of our folks affectionately refer to this graphic as “the love flower.” And some of our folks derisively refer to this graphic as “that love flower.”

However, you feel about the graphic, it does illustrate how we might center our covenant in love.

Universal Love practiced through the values of Generosity, Pluralism, Transformation, Equity, Interdependence, and Justice.

Universal Love that, when lived through these values, moves us “towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.”

My beloveds, as we face the many challenges of this election year – the frankly terrifying wave of authoritarianism flowing through our country – the war and violence in our world – the rampant injustices – the ongoing violations of the inherit worth and dignity of so many – centering ourselves in Universal Love is going to be more vital than ever.

And perhaps, just maybe, by centering ourselves in that Universal Love – we can take George Harrison’s words from our anthem earlier and make them universal:

Give us, ourselves, one another, and our world, love Give us love
Give us peace on earth Give us light
Give us life
Keep us all free from birth.

Who knew George Harrison might be a Universalist?

Amen.

Benediction

 

TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL
by Maya Angelou:

 

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.


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

Sermon Index 2024

2024 Sermons

Sermon Topic
Speaker
Date
 The Power of Utopian Thinking  Carrie Holley-Hurt
3-17-24
 Wonder Woman, Fake News, Lie Detectors,
 and Reasons for Hope
 Rev Michelle LaGrave
3-10-24
 Mary and Lou Among the CypressTrees: Stories of Transformation  Bis Thornton
3-3-24
 Affect Theology  Rev Michelle LaGrave
2-25-24
 Wholly Spirited  Rev. Chris Jimmerson
 and OWL Facilitators
2-18-24
 Rev Chris Jimmerson’s Installation  A host of Guest Clergy
 and Rev Chris Jimmerson
2-17-24
 Talkin’ bout a Revolution  Rev Chris Jimmerson
2-11-24
 2024 Animal Blessing Service  Rev Michelle LaGrave and
 Rev Chris Jimmerson
2-4-24
 A Church for All  Rev Michelle LaGrave
1-28-24
 Universal Love  Rev Chris Jimmerson
1-21-24
 Love in the Hard Places  Rev Michelle LaGrave and
 Rev Chris Jimmerson
1-14-24
 Are You a Player?  Rev Michelle LaGrave
1-7-24

 

Sermon Archives Index

Sermon Indexes
by Year
Principal Speakers
2023 Sermon Index Chris Jimmerson, Michelle LaGrave, Erin Walter, Jonalu Johnstone
2022 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Chris Jimmerson, Erin Walter, Jonalu Johnstone, Lee Legault, John Buehrens
 2021 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Chris Jimmerson
 2020 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Chris Jimmerson
 2019 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Chris Jimmerson, Lee Legault
 2018 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Chris Jimmerson
 2017 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Chris Jimmerson, Susan Yarbrough
 2016 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Chris Jimmerson, Marisol Caballero
 2015 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Marisol Caballero
 2014 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Marisol Caballero
 2013 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Marisol Caballero
 2012 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Marisol Caballero
 2011 Sermon Index Meg Barnhouse, Ed Brock
 2010 Sermon Index Janet Newman, Ed Brock,
 2009 Sermon Index Janet Newman
 2008 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr, Aaron White, Brian Ferguson
 2007 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr, Jack Harris Bonham
 2006 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr, Jack Harris Bonham
 2005 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr, Jack Harris Bonham
 2004 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr, Victoria Shepherd Rao
 The Jesus Seminar Davidson Loehr
 2003 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr, Hannah Wells
 2002 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr, Cathy Herrington
 2001 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr
 2000 Sermon Index Davidson Loehr

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

Burning Bowl 2023

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Bis Thorton
December 31, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

For New Year’s Day, we will hold our annual burning bowl service. We contemplate what we would like to let go so that we may more easily find our center. Then we whisper that which we would like to let go into pieces of flash paper, toss them into a fire and watch them burn away.


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

BURNING THE OLD YEAR
Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Reading

LOVE LETTER Nathalie Handel

I’d like to be a shrine, so I can learn from peoples’ prayers the story of hearts. I’d like to be a scarf so I can place it over my hair and understand other worlds. I’d like to be the voice of a soprano singer so I can move through all borders and see them vanish with every spell-binding note. I’d like to be light so I illuminate the dark. I’d like to be water to fill bodies so we can gently float together indefinitely. I’d like to be a lemon, to be zest all the time, or an olive tree to shimmer silver on the earth. Most of all, I’d like to be a poem, to reach your heart and stay.

Sermon

Before we really get going, I want to address our friends who are in church online today. Today is our Burning Bowl ceremony, which involves taking pieces of flash paper and putting them into a fire. I would like to invite all those in church this morning who are not in the physical building to participate and be both CREATIVE…and SAFE. You might toss an imaginary piece of paper into a candle. You might use your powers of visualization and imagination to put a piece of flash paper into a bonfire in your mind. I would love to know what you decide to do, so feel free to let the church know about it in a Facebook comment or an email or a carrier pigeon or whatever. Whatever you decide to do, I will be carrying one piece of flash paper to the fire to represent what you are letting go of today.

Alright, let’s get going. I want to ask you a strange question this morning. Who is fire? I know what fire is. But who is fire? How do you know it in your life? When I think of fire, I see a series of images and scenes. The knight of wands from the Rider- Waite-Smith Tarot, a young adult in silver armor and yellow clothing astride a red horse galloping across a desert. The gas heater in my first apartment and the way I had to lie down on the floor and then perilously light its pilot light with a match every single time I wanted to use it…and then, the accompanying smell of burning dust, as I didn’t use the heater very often.

Prometheus chained to a rock in the sea, punished for giving fire to humanity. Standing with my friends in a backyard at night, the black sky above us, the darkness holding us, shovels in our hands, laughing and chanting as we dig into the earth to make a fire pit. Christ resurrected, roasting fish on the shore as Peter swims frantically towards his beloved teacher with all his clothes on. Holding a single candle in my hands and lifting it up towards the ceiling of a chapel as we read the name of a beloved soul for another Trans Day of Remembrance.

And, of course, the chalice. We light it at least once a weekÐsometimes more often. The chalice holds more meanings than I can count, which is its power and beautyÐit is the spark of the divine within each of us; it is the light of truth; it is the fire of commitment; it is the warmth of community; it is a torch to the light the way; it is the fire we tend that was lit long before each of us; it is the gift we give to all those who seek it; it is an image from the 1940s; it is timeless; it is an object in our sanctuary; it is passion; it is reason; it is the flaming chalice, symbol of our faith.

Today, I want to do two things. I want to explore fire as a recurring symbol in our faith and our lives, and I want to guide us through our ritual of the Burning Bowl.

So: fire.

Fires must be fed. Like us, they eat. When I think of this, I see myself on my back porch, standing over a little black grill. I accidentally drop a ring of onion between the bars of a grill and into the coals, and I say what I always say when this happens, “That one is a sacrifice to the little god of the fire.” Fire must be fed. The fire in our church’s chalice eats oil; there’s an oil lamp inside of it. And the fire of our burning bowl eats…something more complicated than that.

In a literal sense, it eats accelerant and flash paper. But it also eats gifts from all of us.

The Burning Bowl or Fire Communion is a New Year’s service held by many Unitarian Universalists. This service is our chance as a community to consider our year, and consider our attitudes and behaviors, and then keep what was good, and let go of what was not.

What shall we each give the bowl this year? What is it that we are ready to leave behind? There is always a lot of advice flying around, especially this time of year, regarding exactly where we’ve all fallen short. Some of it may even be good advice. But I worry.

Because I want us to find our joy and our truth by what resonates as true within each of us, not by listening to shame. I want to speak from the heart about this. I think we all have something to let go of today. We all do things that hurt people. We all do things that hurt ourselves. And we all do things that do both, and we hurt others WHILE we hurt ourselves.

And many of us cling to these behaviors for reasons that are sometimes simple and sometimes complicated and hard to understand. In their misguided way, these behaviors protect or serve us. We lash out to push people away before they hurt us. We isolate ourselves to protect ourselves from the possibility of rejection. We say hurtful things to feel strong instead of weak. We judge because we are afraid of the danger others may be putting themselves in. We replicate cycles of abuse and oppression to maintain our power. … And we know we have to stop. But we get stuck. When someone else points it out, we start to panic. We feel ashamed. We spiral. And my friends, I don’t want you to let anything go today just because you are ashamed. You deserve to live a beautiful life free of whatever it is that has hurt you or those around you. We all deserve this, and we can build this life together. As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm that all people have inherent worth and dignity, and that includes you.

We can let go with a spirit of love, a spirit of care, a spirit of joy. And we can grieve whatever must be grieved with open hearts, unburdened by shame. Shame demands we shove whatever repulses us into a box and fight to keep it hidden. But with compassion, we can see that even our worst behaviors were trying to serve us, protect us, and show us love in a misguided and harmful way. And we can hold this part of ourselves close to our hearts, thank it for all it has tried to do and all that it has taught us, and then, finally, we can say goodbye, knowing that the sacred fire will transform it.

So let the fire shine its light upon you. Listen for the still small voice insideÐthe divine spark, which guides you towards a life of love and joy. And together we will feed this fire. For indeed, whatever you give the fire is a gift.

For the fire of the burning bowl will live by eating what you feed it, and will transform what it is fed, and it will feed you, too. And…I believe that by feeding the burning bowl, you also feed the chalice. What might you feed the fire today that will give fuel to the light that shines upon systems of oppression until they are no more? What might you feed the fire today that will cause the light of truth, the warmth of community, and the fire of commitment to burn even more brightly than before? What might you feed the fire today that will tend to your own divine spark and the divine spark of others? What might you feed the fire today that will honor and care for the flaming chalice, symbol of our faith, rich with infinite meaning?

So, with all of that in our minds and hearts, let us light the burning bowl and begin this ritual. We will consider the year together before bringing our gifts to the fire.

In a moment, I will invite Carolyn to carry a flame from the chalice into the bowl. As she does so, let us sit in prayer and contemplation of our own special relationships with the chalice. What values does it hold for you today? Which flames dance most beautifully within you this morning? If you are joining this ritual online, I invite you to light a candle, imagine the bowl vividly in your mind, or do whatever it is you would like to do to participate. I will hold this piece of flash paper for all of you and carry it into the fire last.

Carolyn, please light the fire. [Carolyn lights the bowl]

The fire of the chalice, which is now the fire of the burning bowl, welcomes you. Love, beauty, joy, and compassion live within it. The fire accepts all of who you are, and all of what you will give it. As you consider this past year, you may feel a sting of shame. You may recoil from something you wish you had not done. Please know that you are safe here. No one desires for you to feel any shame. You need not hide anything from this sacred fire. You are already held by what is sacred and counted among the beloved of the world. You are a creature of inherent worth and dignity, and nothing can change that fact. This truth lives within you, and you can return to it at any time.

Now, as the fire burns, let us take a moment to take stock of the past year: 2023. I invite you now to close your eyes if it will be helpful to you. Let the memories of this year flow through you, as much as you can. Say hello to your joys. Say hello to your sorrows. What did you do this year that brought you joy? And what did you do this year that did not? Let’s take a moment to hold each memory of our thoughts and actions, to see which brings joy and which does not. If shame comes, you need not fear it. You are safe here.

Now, let us hold our flash papers (or simply our thoughts) near to ourselves. You can hold this paper in any number of ways. Hold it against your heart so that it can feel what most longs to be free. Hold it against your head so that it can hear the thoughts which wheel within you. Hold it against the part of your body which feels most tense so that it can meet your body’s pain with compassion. Or hold it in a way that your heart, mind, body, or other guide asks you to. If you feel a mysterious communication, follow its guidance. You are safe here. Let us take a holy quiet moment to listen to whatever still small voice might speak to us now.

What shall you let go of today? There are many ways to know. You may know it by a word or phrase: fear, anger, bigotry, reliance on the opinion of others, self-doubt. You may know it by an image in your mind: a closed fist, a dying plant, a dusty stack of papers, an old book, an empty glass. You may know it by a feeling in your body: a tightness, a hot face, a sore throat, a restless urge to run. You may know it by a color, a face, a voice, a sound, or even a disorganized thought. These things go by many names. You may not be entirely sure what your gift to the fire will be today, and that is alright, too. You are safe here, and no one here desires that you feel any shame.

Whatever you will be letting go of today, hold its identity, its name, its image or thought or sound as you hold your paper. If you wish, you may whisper its name into your paper now.

Now, as you hold this thing in your hands, you might see that it is not what you first thought. Perhaps it is much larger than you realized; perhaps it is much smaller. It has done something for you, perhaps in a misguided way. It has tried to protect you, or tried to teach you. It may have harmed you, or it may have harmed others, or maybe both. But in its imperfect way, it has tried. Now comes its time for it to transform in the fire and find a new life, supporting the values you hold in the flame of the chalice.

If you are ready, or if you feel able, outloud or in your mind, I invite us now to thank these parts of ourselves for all they have taught us, by saying: “Thank you; I wish you well.” Thank you, I wish you well.

Now let’s cast them into the fire so they can begin their new existence! Friends in the sanctuary, please line up.

Friends who are online, please take this time to perform the remainder of this ritual however you have chosen to do so.


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