A sermon calling for the end to gun violence.
A Day of Mourning
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The Blessed Fool
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as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, April 9, 2023 When I was in my early twenties, I used to take part in a lot of mass mobilizations. It was an era of giant puppets and papier-mâché. On the streets of Seattle, Chicago, or, say, Washington, DC, it was not uncommon to find massive figurines–sometimes requiring a whole team to transport and...
Widening Love’s Circle: Stewardship
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The sermon celebrating the start of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston's 2023-2024 stewardship campaign.
Ordinary/Extraordinary; an ordination sermon for J Sylvan
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as preached February 26, 2023 at Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church, Houston, Texas There is much in the ordinary life of a religious professional that more secular people find extraordinary. A friend recently reminded of this over dinner. A word about my friend, he is a well-known writer and war correspondent. Most of us would probably describe his life as extraordinary. He has reported from...
Widening Love’s Circle
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as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, February 18, 2023 He drew a circle that shut me out–Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.But Love and I had the wit to win:We drew a circle that took him in! Those words might be familiar. They have long been popular in Unitarian Universalist circles. They come from the poet and lifelong Universalist Edwin Markham. Active in the...
Our Covenant
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A sermon considering the proposed covenant of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston.
Christmas Eve 2022
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as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, December 24, 2022 Joy to the world! Can you feel it? Bright lights against the unanticipated cold. Festive songs, flickering candles, cider, cookies, stories of miracles and poems that attend to “[t]he starry form of love”… Christmas and the winter holidays are here. Joy to the world! Christmas and the winter holidays are a...
Ignorant as the Dawn
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A sermon on what is permanent and what is transient preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston.
The Waning of the Light
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as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, December 4, 2022 In the Jewish tradition there is a midrash, an interpretation, of the Torah, the sacred text, about twilight. It points to a spiritual practice that is essential for many Unitarian Universalists. The midrash has to do with what once happened at the waning of the light, that period of time when it is no longer day...
The Ground of Being
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as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, November 6, 2022 We are in the midst of one of liberal democracy’s great civic rituals: the country’s biennial elections. Their stakes seem to be much higher than usual. In the past weeks, I have talked with more than few of you who have reported losing sleep about their possible outcomes. Pundits, politicians, scholars, and a...