HUU Sermon Archives - 2007

All sermons are the exclusive property of the writer.
Additional sermons will be added as they become available. All sermons are in HTML format.  Some are available for download in MS Word format.

The first paragraph of most of the sermons is included. New sermons are being added to the Community Cafe Blog. You may read them and/or comment on them.

Summing Up by James Geary May 13, 2007

• The title of this talk is “summing up.” So it is going to be about me. But it is not going to be an autobiography; and I’ve tried not to make it an ego trip. I will mention my ancestry. On my mother’s side they were all Virginians, all settlers in Southwest Virginia in the 1700s, English, Dutch, and Scot-Irish. On my father’s side they were early German settlers in Pennsylvania, and Potato Famine Irish, also in Pennsylvania. Quite a mixture. My mother and her siblings were nervous, high strung, active people. Thank goodness those genes were diluted in me by my those of my easy-going laid-back father with his wonderful sense of humor.

The Gnostic Paul by Beryl Lawson May 6, 2007

• The study of the early Christian Church is fascinating on many levels. One delves into the old testament, the new, idea of miracle, metaphor and last but hardly least politics. A few definitions: Gnostic comes from the Greek word for knowledge. It is not knowledge of things, as in, “that is a tree,” but rather as in “I know you.” Truly knowing in the Gnostic sense of the word was to know oneself and by extension, to know God.

Why Easter? Another UU Response by Judith Hollowood April  8, 2007

• Every talk prepared for delivery in a religious community is at least two talks: the one the writer set out to compose and the one she committed to paper at the end of the process of creation. If you should ever set out to compose a talk, you will probably find that to be true for you. Your ideas change as you focus attention on them. You find out what you really think as you put words to the thoughts and feelings that swirled around when you first glimpsed your topic.

MONKS PISSING IN THE SNOW ~ UU Buddhist - No Way! You are Kidding Right? by Ginny Holbrook-Heggie on February 11, 2007

• When I first heard of the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship, I was curious to know more and so I Googled the website. It looked promising and so I Yahooed the Group Discussion Board. Well, not much happened for quite a while, much like sitting on a cushion without mindfulness. Then all hell broke loose. Discussions romped, Buddhist tempers flared, loving kindness prevailed. I knew right then and there I was way over my head.

EPIPHANY: A Very Queer Journey by the Rev. Emma Chattin on January 7, 2007

• It’s a joy to be with you here this morning in beloved community.   My name is Emma, and I am currently working with a handful of folks to begin building a Metropolitan Community Church [MCC]  in the Shenandoah Valley.   We have been renting your beautiful facility Sunday evenings at 6 PM.  Everyone I have encountered in your community has been so friendly to me and to every one in our community.  Your genuine human warmth (in addition to your furnace warmth) has been touching and appreciated. 
  
  In fact, the face of welcome and hospitality that you have shown to us is the very model of that espoused by the faith tradition to which we belong- Christianity – yet sadly, it is one we all too seldom encounter there.  It can even be very difficult for us to find a space to meet.  Why?  The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Church is the first free-standing gay-specific denomination.  We were founded in 1968, a year before Stonewall (a watershed moment in Gay Liberation history), by Rev Troy Perry, a Pentecostal minister who had been defrocked for being homosexual.

Truth? by Chris Edwards on January 14, 2007 NOTE: The talk was in the form of a conversation. Caleb was played by Robin McNallie.

• C.E.: I've been wondering about reality. . .wondering IS THERE an objective reality everyone can agree on? Are there more versions of truth than there once were, or are we just more aware of them? I'm not even thinking about theology or philosophy or values, but the more factual --
  CALEB: (enters or gets up) What are you talking about?
  C.E.: Hey, Cousin Caleb. Truth!