In nearly 31 years of ministry I’ve participated in lots of stewardship campaigns, each with a different theme.

I remember the year the theme was peloton, and folks were encouraged to give generously enough so that those church members with fewer financial resources were able to draft along with them, while the whole church still moved forward.

“If I can’t dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.”

The Emma Goldman’s piece I read earlier this morning, is often paraphrased this way on t-shirts and social media memes. “If I can’t dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.”

A few years ago, in the height of the COVID pandemic, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter Uprising, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, I asked my mentor in ministry if we were living in the end times.

Tomorrow, it hardly needs to be said, our nation celebrates the birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who would be 96 today, if he hadn’t been assassinated at the age of 39–in the prime of his life and at the height of his public ministry.

[this sermon was prefaced by stories submitted by members of the congregation]

When someone learns that I’m pastor of a church their follow up questions fall into a couple predictable patterns. The inquirer either asks demographic and geographic questions–where is that, how many members do you have, how long has the church been there/how long have you been there?

My friend Lisa’s dad died this week just past. “It was peaceful,” she said. “We’re relieved for him. And sad...”

I remember well that mingled relief and sadness when my own dad died many years ago. Dad had already been on my mind before I got Lisa’s text.

My colleague, friend, role model, Mike Mather signs his correspondence “keep tellin’ the story.” Since he always writes “the story” not “a story” I think he must have a particular story in mind, though I’ve never known him to specify one.

In 2014 a short piece ran on NPR:

"Can you hear the difference between hot and cold?

A British "sensory branding company" called Condiment Junkie wanted to know the answer.

We’ve got the whole world in our hands.

And we’ve had it in our hands, to some extent, all these 300,000 years since our species evolved into existence upon the earth. I don’t know enough biology or natural history to say definitively, but it seems to me we might say that homo sapiens appearance was the beginning of a trophic cascade that continues still today.

Prior to this week, when Megan introduced me to Sleeping Beauty: A Midcentury Fairytale, my favorite version of the old tale came from The Barefoot Book of Princesses.

Early on in my ministry in South Bend, Indiana, the pastor of a quite conservative, local, independent church invited me to be a guest at an adult Christian education class.

Perhaps you remember a scene in the movie Baby Boom. It’s one that often comes to my mind at Water Ceremony time. The former New Yorker, not yet adjusted to life on her rural Vermont homestead, is told that her well is dry.

A person was being chased by a tiger. The tiger chased them straight to the edge of the cliff. They grabbed a strong vine and began to lower themselves to the bottom–before noticing another tiger waiting below.

Poet Jennifer Grotz wrote:

"Summer specializes in time, slows it down almost to dream.

…

Summer lingers, but it’s about ending. It’s about how things redden and ripen and burst and come down."

Some of you here today and others who sit in our sanctuary or attend our services on YouTube, like some folks who participate in other Unitarian Universalist churches, were raised in our tradition.

Let us sing the new world in this is how it all begins*

Really, Carrie Newcomer, composer and lyricist of this morning’s anthem, preached the only sermon necessary for a Coming of Age Sunday service with those two phrases:

Let us sing the new world in/this is how it all begins.

Back in November, just after All Saints and All Souls Days, I preached another sermon called We’re All in This Together. I spoke of the continuity of love on both sides of the grave, and I reminded us that sooner or later we all belong to a community of everyone who has ever loved someone who has died. A vast and all encompassing circle of mourners.

Once upon a time my daughter learned a catchy little song at Chalice Camp–a Unitarian Universalist day camp. The lyrics, by Laila Ibrahim, come as close to a UU catechism as anything I’ve ever encountered:

It’s blessing each of us was born.

It matters what we do with our lives.

What each of us knows about God is a piece of the truth.

We don’t have to do it alone.