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- | Sermon Video |
This is a full list of sermons presented at UUCCSM since mid-1999. Links to sermon texts are included when made available by their authors. Audio recordings are also available for most sermons presented after September, 2007 by our staff ministers and others directly affiliated with our church (just click the speaker icon next to each sermon where it's available*). Audio from guest speakers is posted only when we have their permission to share it.
Hard copies of sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Kalendae are available in the church office. Contact office assistant Sibylla Nash at office@uusm.org if you have a request.
"Leaving Room for Hope: Sermons for Uncertain Times," a book of Minister Emerita Judith Meyer's sermons, is available here.
**Please Note: Video recordings are available for sermons with a small TV icon showing at the bottom of the sermon listing. Just click the icon to watch the service.**
The unleavened bread eaten by the Israelites as they fled Egypt and slavery is referred to in the seder as "Lechem Oni," the bread of affliction. Eating it reminds the Jewish people each Passover that their ancestors were enslaved and then liberated. This service will examine the complexities of affliction and liberation, present and past, for the Jews and for all people.
The poet Wendell Berry writes, "Only by restoring the broken connections can we be healed." Our lives and our spirit are nurtured and restored by connections with nature, with others, with what is holy in life. Worship is an attitude and a practice that can lead to ever deepening and healing connections. The Rev. Dr. Lawrence Palmieri Peers is the Extension Education and Research Director with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in Boston. His work focuses on congregational growth and vitality. He leads trainings and consultations with congregations throughout the continent. He was the primary editor of The Congregational Handbook (1994 edition).
Though we claim to live in a communications era, we are coming to understand that increased modes of communication do not automatically mean that real, authentic communication is happening. How can dialogue become an everyday spiritual practice that brings forth greater understanding, new truth and healing into our lives and the world?
Fairy tales engage children around the fears and anxieties associated with childhood and offer insights they can identify with as they navigate the developmental hurdles of growing up. Fairy tales for the second half of life, called elder tales, have a similar function, but address the developmental hurdles of elderhood.
Religions are often viewed as static depositories of beliefs. We often ask, "What do you believe?" rather than "What do you do?" But religions also offer methods designed to stimulate personal religious experiences. As Unitarian Universalists we follow the Protestant model of Sunday services that are mostly "about" religion, but then, when do we actually "do" our religion? Ricky Hoyt is Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills.
In a full life, we hold on and let go, over and over again. Attachment and separation are intertwined. Learning involves understanding both.
A sanctuary is a holy place, set aside to protect and make room for the work of the church. As we move closer to envisioning our facility development program, we move deeper into our mission as a church. The sanctuary is central to all of it.
Scott Alexander writes, "It seems to me the question is not will 'bad' things happen to you in your lifetime. Unless you are remarkably lucky, they will. The question is what 'spiritual camber' will you manage to bring to your heart as you struggle to respond. In life's difficult times, our spiritual perspective largely determines whether we will succeed in finding new meaning and hope for the days ahead, or sink with sinking circumstances." Scott Alexander is minister of River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda, Maryland.
While concerns about apocalyptic global terrorism arose around the New Year, I noticed that most of the threat came from religious devotees anticipating the apocalypse. These menacing influences have little to do with our approach to faith. Yet they threaten our world as well as everything we cherish in the name of religion, and we should be very concerned about that.
This Sunday the interfaith community of California joins together to affirm that all people deserve to love and be loved in committed relationships and families. The service will include a message from Kris Langabeer about the Knight Initiative.
