{"id":141522,"date":"2026-04-27T14:50:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T20:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?p=141522"},"modified":"2026-04-27T14:50:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T20:50:59","slug":"a-theology-of-limitless-possibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/a-theology-of-limitless-possibilities\/","title":{"rendered":"A Theology of Limitless Possibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_6282\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-141522-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-04-26_Limitless_Possibilities.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-04-26_Limitless_Possibilities.mp3\">http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-04-26_Limitless_Possibilities.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-04-26_Limitless_Possibilities.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?powerpress_pinw=141522-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2026-04-26_Limitless_Possibilities.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"2026-04-26_Limitless_Possibilities.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Rev. Chris Jimmerson<br \/>April 26, 2026<br \/>First UU Church of Austin<br \/>4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756<br \/>www.austinuu.org<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Rising authoritarianism. The climate in crisis. War without reason or remorse. Racism, misogyny, and bigotry unbridled. Democracy, equality, justice seemingly at threat in so many places. And, of course, our dreams for our own individual life can sometimes feel at risk also. And yet, what if creative potential, our own and the world&#8217;s, is still virtually limitless? What if, through all the chaos, we are being lured toward possibilities that we have not yet dared to dream? What if we are being called to create something new?<\/p>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Welcome<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8220;Allegretto from Sonata Op.166&#8221; (Saint Saens) &#8211; Madeline Warner, oboe; Valeria Diaz, piano<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Chalice Lighting<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">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 we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Call to Worship<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">HOPE ALWAYS COMES EASIER<br \/>Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">when it&#8217;s morning,<br \/>when the birds are already<br \/>weaving music through the trees. <br \/>Easier when the dew<br \/>still shines on the leaves<br \/>and the world is warming.<br \/>In these ripening moments, <br \/>it&#8217;s hard to remember,<br \/>was it only hours ago, <br \/>how darkness poured over you <br \/>like oil in the ocean.<br \/>How nothing seems possible then. <br \/>But here, here is the bright red neck <br \/>of morning, humming through the shadows <br \/>on emerald wings, and here you are,<br \/>rising to meet it, not even<br \/>because you want to, <br \/>but because something in you rises <br \/>and carries you with it into the day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Affirming Our Mission <\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Anthem<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8220;Oblivion&#8221; (Piazzolla) &#8211; Madeline Warner, oboe; Valeria Diaz, piano<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><b>Reading<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">BUILDING THE WORLD WE BELIEVE IN<br \/>Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I haven&#8217;t given up on humans yet. <br \/>Though here in America where masked agents <br \/>pull women and men from their homes&#8211; <br \/>people who build our communities, our country&#8211; <br \/>we are so far from the goodness I imagine. <br \/>In second grade, I remember making forts <br \/>at recess with small snow balls we&#8217;d <br \/>squeeze in our hands. So carefully, <br \/>so gently, we would place them, one on top <br \/>of another to create a small home. <br \/>And then, maybe every time, when <br \/>the recess bell rang, a group of boys <br \/>would linger and at the last moment <br \/>they would kick our snow walls down. <br \/>It is in all of us, the bully, the one <br \/>who enjoys destruction, the one who <br \/>wants to feel powerful, strong. <br \/>But it is also in us all to speak out<br \/>for each other, to stand up for each other, <br \/>to say no, this is not okay. It is in us all of us <br \/>to gather the way we did in second grade <br \/>with our small mittened hands, going out <br \/>the next recess, and the next, and the next,<br \/>to build together again. Because we can.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><b>Centering<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Music for Meditation: &#8220;Love Theme&#8221; (Ennio Morricone) &#8211; Madeline Warner, oboe; Valeria Diaz, piano<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Sermon<\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We are not solely the products of our past.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We are not static objects of a severely restrictive present moment, bound forever by our current state and the current conditions in which we find ourselves.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We are each of us, and all of us, a continuously changing, ever evolving process of becoming, unfolding, far less constrained by the past or the present than we are still extraordinarily free to choose from almost endless creative possibilities for truth, beauty, love, justice and the common good.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">So says process theology, a perspective rooted in the discoveries of quantum physics, through which we have learned that while you, and I, and this pulpit, and the rocks outside those windows, indeed all that we think of as static matter, are actually energy in process, changing in each and every moment.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Thus, we have new choices in each and every moment.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote>For process theology, God, then, is the ultimate metaphysical process of our universe, offering us, calling us to creative, life-giving choices, inviting us to create the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">That&#8217;s according to theologian Monica A. Coleman in her book, <u>Making a Way Out of No Way; A Womanist Theology.<\/u><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Coleman quotes Alfred North Whitehead, the originator of process thought, as saying that<\/p>\n<blockquote>God &#8220;is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it to a vision of truth, beauty, and goodness&#8221;.<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And because processes do not exist as distinct objects but instead involve an ever evolving flow of constant change, they interact. They influence and change one another. They are interrelated, and thus interdependent.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">So, since you and I are these ever changing processes, we are also interdependent with one another and with all of creation.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">If you&#8217;re feeling a bit processed out at this point, bear with my theologizing just a little bit longer.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">This concept that all is process and thus all is interdependent, leads process theology to envision God, not only as that ultimate process that calls us to our greatest creative potential, but that also interrelates with us &#8211; holds, comforts, and feels with us at the same time.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Whitehead called God, &#8220;The fellow sufferer who understands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Our present day Unitarian Universalist Theologian, Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker puts it like this,<\/p>\n<blockquote>&#8220;This is not merely a metaphor, but an actual presence, alive and afoot in the cosmos, an upholding and sheltering presence that receives and feels everything that happens with compassion and justice, offering the world back to itself in every moment with a fresh impulse to manifest the values of beauty, peace, vitality and liberation. God is everlastingly emergent, alive, responsive, creative, at one with the chaotic, messy universe in which we live.&#8221;<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">OK, that&#8217;s a lot of heady philosophical stuff, I know.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And you may be thinking, &#8220;All right, Rev. Chris, but why should all of this theology stuff matter to me! I&#8217;m not sure I am buying this &#8216;process God&#8217; stuff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Here&#8217;s why this way of thinking may can be helpful.<\/p>\n<p>When I wrote the description for this service, I cheerfully started it as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Rising authoritarianism.<\/li>\n<li>The climate in crisis.<\/li>\n<li>War without reason or remorse.<\/li>\n<li>Racism, misogyny, and bigotry unbridled.<\/li>\n<li>Democracy, equality, justice seemingly at threat in so many places throughout our world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, so often, our dreams for our own individual lives can feel at risk also.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Now, I would understand if when you read that, you were like, &#8220;Geez, I hope they&#8217;re providing Prozac and magic mushroom tea during the social hour after the service today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Sometimes, the present moment can seem pretty bleak, can&#8217;t it! And the past that led to it can make us feel like we&#8217;re stuck &#8211; like we have few if any choices left.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">But if everything, including us, consists of these ever unfolding processes of change, then our choices remain almost limitless because we stop thinking of ourselves and the state of our world as static objects.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We open ourselves to the creative call of what Whitehead called God.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Now, whether you can only think of this process concept of God as metaphor for the creative evolution of our universe, or as Dr. Parker terms it, an actual presence alive and afoot in that universe, suddenly, even the bleakest of times can still feel like a call to create change for love, beauty, justice and the common good.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Dr. Parker writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote>&#8220;Does this God exist! My intuition says yes. Yours may say no. However the question is answered, it is provisional. The very rocks cry out to tell us that stillness is an illusion and that motion is the reality.&#8221;<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8220;Motion is the reality&#8221; That, in my opinion, is the key insight of process theology. It allows us to know in our souls that, even in the hardest of times, change is always still possible, because change is always the ultimate reality.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,<\/p>\n<blockquote>&#8220;When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.&#8221;<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Those words still seem more than prophetic today, don&#8217;t they?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">That God of process theology, whether metaphor or actual presence, is still calling us to Beloved Community and our fullest potential, even amidst or perhaps through, the chaos and the turmoil.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Examples of this abound, both in our individual lives and in our communities and our world.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Artist Frieda Kahlo began to paint after an accident left her bedridden for more than three months. She used a specially designed easel so that she could paint while confined to bed and a mirror her father had hung overhead for her so that she could create some of her most famous self-portraits. She endured a lifetime of physical pain but channeled her suffering into bold, emotional art that soothed her own soul and continues to move people today.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">In an impoverished, isolated area of Alabama that had been a former plantation called Gee&#8217;s Bend, with little resources and where homes were unheated, a group of African American women began piecing together scraps of old clothing and feed sacks to create quilts to keep people warm. Instead of following traditional patterns, they used bold, improvised geometry.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Well, their work eventually got noticed by the art world, and what began as desperate necessity now hangs in the metropolitan museum of art, as well as in museums around the world.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Because of their creative response to the call of adversity, Gee&#8217;s Bend is no longer so isolated or impoverished. After being occupied and taken over by the Soviet Union, the people of Estonia maintained their national identity, despite severe restrictions on freedom of expression, by gathering to create massive choral festivals rooted in their native songs and traditions. This &#8220;singing revolution&#8221;, where what could not be spoken politically was sung collectively, became a safe but powerful container for identity and eventually helped fuel a peaceful path to independence.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Estonia is now a democratic, thriving country, having answered God&#8217;s creative call toward justice and the common good through song.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And yes, I am now be using the process theology God concept without qualifiers and will let you interpret it with whatever qualifiers you might wish.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">There are so many more examples.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Beethoven composed some of his greatest works after losing his hearing.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Ukraine has found ever more creative ways to withstand a 12 year onslaught by a larger power in war they did not seek.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">During the great depression, people in this country helped each other survive by forming cooperative kitchens, community gardens, barter systems and many other forms of mutual aide.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The list goes on and on and on. Change is always still possible.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The great process continues.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God is still luring us, even through adversity, toward almost endless creative possibilities for truth, beauty, love, justice and the common good.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Now, speaking of adversity, I want to return to that list I read earlier of what we are witnessing and enduring now.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">You see, I think that even through our current turmoil, God may be calling us to something new, offering some of us a novel perspective, beckoning us to consider new creative possibilities.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I think that a lot of even well intended folks who come from a location of privilege, even if it not of their choosing, tend to see the ascendency of MAGA, and Trump, and the architects of the racist, bigoted, patriarchal, anti-democratic Project 2025 as an aberration &#8211; a cancer in the American system that just needs to be removed so that we can heal a system that has gotten broken.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The theology we are discussing today though, invites us to understand systems as really a set of processes designed and combined to create desired outcomes.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">But, these systems and processes were designed by humans, not the divine.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And the desired outcome, the design intent, is to privilege certain groups of people over others &#8211; to concentrate power within the very few to the detriment of everyone else.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And so, well-intentioned folks who have never the less benefited at least somewhat from that system, are being called amongst the chaos to understand what many black folks, and BIPOC folks, and queer folks, and certain uppity women already know.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The system isn&#8217;t broken. It is functioning exactly according to its design intent. It is a system that grew out of enslavement and disenfranchisement and subjugation.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And what is driving the MAGA and Project 2025 folks is that the progress that has been made over nearly two and a half centuries now to mitigate the harms of such processes, that progress has begun to threaten the entire system with collapse, and so they are acting to preserve their concentration of power. They&#8217;re not even pretending differently anymore.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And simply getting them out of office won&#8217;t change a system for which they are that system&#8217;s ultimate design intent.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">So, our divine calling then, it not to try to repair a system that isn&#8217;t designed to create truth, beauty, love, justice and the common good &#8211; we are being called to build the Beloved Community &#8211; new systems and processes that nourish souls, transforms lives, and do justice.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">That sounds familiar.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Now, though, but what does that look like?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Well, that could be material for a whole series of other sermons.<\/p>\n<p>And stay tuned, because it&#8217;s going to be. For now though, it looks like, just as a few examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>designing voting systems that actually encourage voting and make it simple and accessible,<\/li>\n<li>healthcare that actually cares (witness what other democracies have done),<\/li>\n<li>Public safety and justice system processes that concentrate on community security, restoration, actual rehabilitation and far less on the subjugation of BIPOC people, which seems to be a large part of the design intent of the current system, including the so-called immigration system.<\/li>\n<li>Economic systems that are far less hierarchical and even democratic &#8211; such as B corporations and other models for employee and stakeholder co-led businesses already successfully operating here in the U.S. and around the world. And while we are at it, we might replace taxation, investment, wage, labor, social support, anti-discrimination and anti-racism law in the U.S. with systems that actually reign in inequality rather than expand it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"left\">Well, you get the idea. There are so many more examples.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Instead of expending energy on trying to repair systems that were designed to limit the world about which we can we dream, what if we are being called to a boldness that demands the creation of something new.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Now that is truly a divine calling.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">My beloveds, as individuals, as communities, as entire societies, process theology shows us that we do not have to and in fact, cannot, remain what we are or what we have been.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">God, the poet of the world, is with tender patience leading us to a vision of more truth, more beauty, more love, more Kin-dom of Heaven on carth.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Amen.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Extinguishing the Chalice<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Benediction <\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">WHAT TO REMEMBER WHEN WAKING<br \/>by David Whyte<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake, <br \/>coming back to this life from the other<br \/>more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world<br \/>where everything began, <br \/>there is a small opening into the new day<br \/>which closes the moment you begin your plans.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">What you can plan is too small for you to live. <br \/>What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough <br \/>for the vitality hidden in your sleep.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">To be human is to become visible<br \/>while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others. <br \/>To remember the other world in this world<br \/>is to live in your true inheritance.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">You are not a troubled guest on this earth,<br \/>you are not an accident amidst other accidents <br \/>you were invited from another and greater night<br \/>than the one from which you have just emerged.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window <br \/>toward the mountain presence of everything that can be<br \/>what urgency calls you to your one love? <br \/>What shape waits in the seed of you<br \/>to grow and spread its branches <br \/>against a future sky?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Is it waiting in the fertile sea? <br \/>In the trees beyond the house? <br \/>In the life you can imagine for yourself?<br \/>In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">May the congregation say, &#8220;Amen&#8221;, and &#8220;blessed be&#8221;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I love you fiercely. Go in peace.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Postlude<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8220;Vivace from Sonata in A minor&#8221; (Telemann) &#8211; Madeline Warner, oboe; Valeria Diaz, piano<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/category\/sermons\/indexes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>SERMON INDEX<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Most sermons during the past 26 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.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/podcast\/first-unitarian-universalist\/id372427776\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>PODCASTS<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. Rev. Chris JimmersonApril 26, 2026First UU Church of Austin4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756www.austinuu.org Rising authoritarianism. The climate in crisis. War without reason or remorse. Racism, misogyny, and bigotry unbridled. Democracy, equality, justice seemingly at threat in so many places. And, of course, our dreams&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,27,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-available","category-chris-jimmerson","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141523,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141522\/revisions\/141523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}