Sermons Archive
THE ARAMAIC PRAYER OF JESUS
July 11, 2010
I read this translation directly from the Aramaic to English at today’s service. I was asked by several people to please post it to the listserv. I am posting a copy of the prayer, as well as link to the website where I found it.
Read More...UU Equation: An Aid for Teaching our Faith
March 21, 2010
We live by seven principles from seven sources and learn through four themes. These give us four beliefs which create our U.U. Identity.
Read More...Practicing Reconciliation
February 28, 2010
What do we do when we learn something less than glamorous about our people’s past? How do we live each day with the knowledge that people we would call our ancestors, our kin, were involved in activities and events we would find abhorrent today? Where do we turn when the historic values upon which we believed our faith lay, have been violated?
Read More...Beginning Again
February 21, 2010
Forgiving others is hard. Forgiving oneself can be even harder, especially if there is something in your past that is hard to release. But whatever holds you to that painful, self-critical past, is blocking you from a lighter, more peaceful future.
Read More...The Pluralistic Pulpit
February 07, 2010
The image of a river comes to mind for our religious tradition that has always sought the new. Each of us arrives at the shore, wanting to be drenched in something new. Some dip a toe in, find the current too strong, and leave dry and unchanged. Some dip a toe in, then a knee, stand there for months or years, or a lifetime, soaking in the smells and sounds of the riverbed without ever fully immersing themselves. Others arrive, lured by the sparkle of the sun on the ripples of current, and dive right in, and drink up all the wonders this tradition has to offer.
Read More...What Would Martin Luther King Do?
January 17, 2010
By about 1964, King had concluded that the movement had moved beyond Civil Rights. Historian David Garrow wrote that by November of 1966, King had concluded that the movements biggest obstacles were economic rather than legal, and tied much more closely to issues of class rather than race.
With this much broader agenda, King sought to build coalitions between disparate groups. First, King sought to unify African Americans across class lines. He galvanized middle-class black Americans by powerful preaching in black churches that reminded them that Christian service was more important than worldly possessions.
Read More...Generosity as Spiritual Practice
January 10, 2010
Taken together, the combination of investment in time or discernment, talent, and treasure that is made possible in congregational life makes it a ripe laboratory for cultivating the kind of generosity our world so desperately needs. There are many places that would love to engage our few spare hours with volunteer work. But as a religious community, I invite us to ask those deeper questions about the nature of our service and our leadership. Questions that can ultimately, engage us more deeply in living generous lives.
Read More...A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
December 24, 2009
All of us come here wondering if we will hear once again the re-telling of an ancient story — the story of an innocent young couple, on a journey, who have a baby in the most unlikely of places.
The story reminds us to keep connected to the extraordinary in the ordinary, to the miracle inherent in each birth, to the possibilities that each life journey provides us. It invites us to explore the metaphor and parable inherent in our own life journey, to imagine what star we might be following, to open ourselves up to radical hospitality, no matter where we might find ourselves.