When Death Becomes Life
If you were here via YouTube Live or in the sanctuary last Sunday, you heard a message from our guest speaker that probably surprised you, and may have upset some of you. You probably expected to hear about Habitat for Humanity. Perhaps, fitting the theme of the month, some remarks about how homeownership, and the sweat equity Habitat requires of potential homeowners, transforms lives and families and communities. Instead you heard a decidedly Christian Palm Sunday sermon.
Good Enough
There is a story we tell in our western culture. It’s a story about a story. We tell it in our books for middle grade kids and in our movies and sit-coms. We tell the story that most normal kids go through a stage during which they fantasize (tell a story) about their parents not being their parents.
The Transient, the Permanent and the Semi-Permanent
I love the enthusiasm and creativity Tom and Milne have brought to our stewardship drive. I particularly love that they have centered much of the discussion about supporting our church around foundational Unitarian Universalist principles, but my heart kind of sank when I saw our flower children with their 8 principles signs a couple Sundays ago, because I knew I’d be preaching today about how those principles will soon be neither official nor prominent among our public discussions and statements of what Unitarian Universalism is, and who UUs are, and what both holds us together as a faith movement and sets us apart as a distinct faith movement.
Fleeting Triumph
I’m going to start this morning by talking about Norwegian independence day, because that’s what one does on Palm Sunday, right?
To set the scene:
My most recent ministry was in a small Unitarian Universalist church just outside of a town of 400 people.
The Universalist God
As I see the blooming tulip-trees around town I’m reminded of my favorite mnemonic device from my divinity school days: TULIP.
Total depravity;
Unconditional election;
Limited atonement;
Irresistible grace; and
Perseverance of the saints.
Born This Day
Surely there are cloudy Christmas Days, and snowy ones. And of course Christmas Eve lasts twenty-four hours, many of them in daylight. But in my mind Christmas Eve is always nighttime, and Christmas Day is always a sunny, sparkling morning.