The service was led by Rev. Alex McGee, Assistant Minister and Bob Gross, Worship Weaver. This text and notes are generally what I said from the pulpit, but some extemporizing and changes occurred during delivery. Please give credit when citing sources. For today, I picked the sermon title “What Does...
This is the text of the Reflections I offered on Sunday, June 30, 2019 to the congregation I have served for the past 8 years. It is the last Reflection I will offer as their Lead Minister. It is also quite possibly the last sermon I will offer for quite...
This is the text of the reflection I offered on Sunday, June 16, 2019 to the congregation I serve in Charlottesville, Virginia. A woman is doing some painting in her kitchen. She bumps into a small table and then, in that horrified slow motion way, watches as the jar of...
There is a story in the Hebrew Scriptures about a man named Nehemiah. You might be expecting me to tell the story of Queen Esther and how she outed herself as Jewish just after the King declared his intention to exterminate all of the Jews in his kingdom, saving her people. That’s the story that’s the...
Last week I wrote a bit about the social justice ministry IMPACT (or, “Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together”). I noted that it’s an example of congregation-based community organizing, a form of community organizing that leverages the power of faith communities (in which large groups of people are already gathered) to affect...
What makes you feel at home? What makes you feel welcome? That’s not a rhetorical question. Really … what makes you feel welcome and at home? I read an article this week in which the author pondered this question. She came to the conclusion that she felt most at home, most welcome, when the...
INTRO We are just a week and half away from the first day of spring. The world around us is doing its annual transformation. And we humans have a chance to think about transformations in our lives, also. The butterfly is a class example because of its change from egg...
Langston Hughes wrote “I Dream a World” in 1929. 34 years before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously talked about his dream in front of approximately a quarter of a million people at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. Another 49 years would pass before the UUA published the Tapestry of Faith curricula, “Building the World We Dream...
The choir just sang what is easily one of the most recognizable hymns ever composed. (And the arrangement was by our own Scott DeVeaux.) “Amazing Grace” was written in the mid-1700s by a preacher named John Newton. As a young man Newton served as a mate on a slave ship...
Whether we call it “Chinese New Year,” the “Spring Festival,” or the “Lunar Festival,” this major Chinese celebration (which began this past Tuesday and will continue on through a week from this coming Wednesday) is a really, really big deal. It’s celebrated by more than 20% of all the people in...
