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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.**
This is the Sunday we have set aside to celebrate who we are and what we may become as a church community. We urge all friends and members to join us as we renew our vision and our commitment to the future. We need each of you to fulfill the promise and to enjoy brunch together following each service. The choir will sing at both services.
The Jewish solemn observance of Yom Kippur has implications for people of all faiths. The act of giving and receiving forgiveness is fundamental to our lives. Yet it doesn't come naturally to most of us. Simply having the intention, even if we're not certain we can follow through, can help us to begin. Religious Education classes for children begin at both services today. Cellist Karen Patch will perform the Kol Nidre at both services.
Note we resume our normal schedule today, with services at both 930 and 1100. Reunions are occasional rites of passage, filled with curiosity and fraught with anxiety. They confront us with change and comfort us with what never changes. Join us for our Fall Ingathering to contemplate this experience together. We will welcome and dedicate our Teachers of Religious Education. Children may leave for supervised activities after the Teacher Dedication, or remain with their families for the entire service. The choir will sing at both services.
Our guest is urban strategist for the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. When we think about the work we do, how does it reflect what we value, what we hold dear? When we think about the work we do, how does it reflect our life? And when we think about the pay we do work for, what should it reflect about our value of life itself?
All through August, our third annual summer filmfest features five very different movies, but each one provides images for strengthening and deepening our religious faith. For those not inclined to watch movies, please know that enjoyment and benefit from each sermon and service depends only on your attendance and attitude. Gods and Monsters Transforming Horror into Grandeur Sir Ian McKellan's performance is only one of the wonders of this biographical tribute to movie director James Whale, who gave us the modern iconic image of Frankenstein. Just what goes into making a monster, and how does our community offer the hope for seeing the beauty behind the grotesque appearance?August 22, 1999 Shall We Dance The Power of Ritual Touch A Japanese businessman facing a mid-life crisis embarks on a journey which reinvigorates his connection to his soul and his body (if, indeed, there is a difference between the two). This movie sparked a revival of interest in ballroom dancing in Japan (and elsewhere), and we will examine why this phenomenon is more than an exercise in nostalgia.August 15, 1999
Too many intelligent people, Ricky writes, "have felt the findings of science have justified ignoring religion. As we move toward a post-modernist world view, many religious thinkers and scientists have begun to ask whether the modernist split between religious values and scientific fact ought to be as clean as we've made it." A former member of our congregation, the Rev. Ricky Hoyt is now minister at theUnitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills , La Crescenta.
Dr. Lex Crane, who has served our congregation as interim minister, returns to our pulpit with this topic "A free economy, such as our own, generates enormous energy, creativity and wealth. But, as tends to be true in many other areas of human life, a free economy has an up-side and also a down-side," he writes. "The service will consider both, and the current balance between them."
God hates fags is the message that The Rev. Fred Phelps, a prominent anti-gay activist, displays on his picket sign. How can Unitarian Universalists respond to those who insist the Hebrew and Christian scriptures condemn homosexuality? The Rev. Gail Geisenhainer, Extension Minister at Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church, Canoga Park, will address this question. Judith Meyer will be speaking at Emerson Church this Sunday on a pulpit exchange with Gail Geisenhainer.
In a recent essay, The Rev. Khoren Arisian noted that the framers of the American Constitution operated on the assumption that "our human nature is in the end fundamentally sound, more healthy than not." We Unitarian Universalists agree, he adds.
Neil Comess-Daniels is Rabbi of Beth Shir Sholom, a Jewish synagogue in Santa Monica. He is also President of the Westside Interfaith Council, a musician and a prominent social activist.
