heading
  Weekly UUpDate | Homepage | Office | Webmaster | Sitemap

HOME
      Sermon Topics
      Directions & Map
      President's Message
      Minister's Message
""   WebCalendar

""   Newsletter 
A    
    September 2010

""   Weekly UUpDate

""   400 Days
        New Home Decisions 
**
        Q&A #3  (& #1 & #2)

CONGREGATIONAL LIFE
     Green Sanctuary
     
Small Group Ministry (SGMs)
     Covenant of UU Pagans
         (CUUPs)
     Social Justice
     Interweave
     Pledge Form (pdf)
     eScrip
     Choirs
     Children's Religious Ed
     Youth Groups
     Adult Religious Ed
     E-mail listservs

NEWCOMERS
     Visitors and Newcomers
     What do UUs believe?
     UUCE Resources Guide (pdf)
     Welcoming Congregation
     OurTown (about this area)

LEADERSHIP 
     Board/Committees
     Comm. on Cong. Ministry
           (COCM)
     
New Home

Our Sister UU Fellowship
          in Springfield, Oregon
Unitarian Universalist
          Association (UUA)
Pacific Northwest District
          (PNWD)

     UUCE Home
""  Site Map

 

  


SERMONS by REV. STEPHEN AMES

(Editor’s note for UUCE website sermons: not all service elements are listed each Sunday. Some weeks, just the sermon will appear on the website. Other weeks, a few elements particularly relevant to the sermon or reflection will be included. Some sermons are currently available in audio or in PDF formats only.)

2010

Farewell
June 6, 2010

...I thank you for providing a safe, nurturing haven for so many youth, where life-affirming values are fostered for young people who regularly face negative social pressures.
... I was touched by the healthy, respectful, careful process of your decision-making in deciding to find a new property and selecting one. Despite tensions at different points, the church has united for this. Congregational input has been real, without stalling the process. The process has been meaningfully inclusive while also forward-moving.
... I thank you for the Small Group Program, meeting real needs with creativity and care, well-managed with a good mix of tradition and innovation, and providing spiritual growth for facilitators as well as participants. I enjoyed assisting this program...

PDF
Audio
 
 

Living in the Neutral Zone
April 18, 2010

...This is part of living in the neutral zone: finding a stillness, a moment of peace that one may feel when experiencing a loss by circumstance or choice. A freedom, a sense of being and self much deeper than one’s attachment to the object of the loss: yes, I’ve lost these things, this endeavor, this relationship, this dream. And yes, I’ll survive – and maybe even better than that. Perhaps in these losses is a new beginning, a new self emerging.

PDF
Audio

Harry Potter: Facing Your Heritage
April 11, 2010

...Harry is ready to take the plunge into the shadow side of his father’s character because he is almost ready to see those parts of himself. Preparing to meet real, present-time, external challenges, Harry can ill afford to be burdened by an unexamined dark side, particularly as it pertains to the use of power. Harry’s learning to see his father in a more holistic way will help him become a person less shocked and angry at hurts in general, in Milosz’ words, at the sharpness of rocks against his feet. He will also be more able to see the ways his own words and actions can, like sharp rocks, cut and hurt others...

PDF
Audio

The Promise of Easter
April 4, 2010

Death threatens us not only at the end of our lives but at every moment, the thousand little deaths of the spirit, the grievances we carry with us, the discouragements and sorrows that weigh us down, the sense of frustration or futility that darken our days and drear our nights. Easter is the promise that we can be reborn; it is the promise of new life. It is the assurance that in the midst of death we are in life.  The Easter faith can be expressed in two words: life wins.

PDF
Audio

Bound for a Place Called Earth
March 21, 2010

If you doubt the power of myth to shape reality, or the power of
science-fiction as myth, consider that the leader of one of earth’s reallife
superpowers referred to the other superpower as “The Evil Empire,” a clear reference to Star Wars. Since the mid-1980s, our sci-fi myths have become darker, and more complicated. We are less sure who is good, who is evil; even the boundaries of humanity are questioned, as are assumptions about its
inherent goodness.

PDF

Renewing Faith Amid the Rubble
March 14, 2010

We have a section in our hymnal, “In Time to Come,” with a handful of hymns with titles like “Wonders Still the World Shall Witness” and “Hail the Glorious Golden City.” This is part of our “onward and upward” orientation in liberal religion, one that can energize and brighten our spirits, but it can also seem strikingly discordant with reality during violent times. This section seems to me the most outdated in our hymnal. We don’t yet have a “finding faith amid the ruins” section in our hymnal.

PDF
Audio

Faith Without Certainty  
February 21, 2010

...we needn’t – and shouldn’t – be paralyzed by our self-questioning. It is precisely because of the human capacity for self-delusion that we are wary of faith with certainty. It is precisely because of the human capacity for self-delusion that we are called to live with a flawed faith nonetheless, for to eschew faith and conviction is to live as unwitting and easy prey for the many invisible gods of our culture. We all worship something, have no doubt about that. We can either choose the ways of being we worship, that which we put at the center of our life, or allow larger forces to choose for us. In our culture, individualism and consumerism are waiting to guide the lives of those who, in the spirit of doubt and openness and freedom, choose nothing with which to orient and guide their lives.

PDF
Audio

2009

Hanukkah: Dedication of the Temple
Dec 12, 2009

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live at a time when stories like these were being invented or drastically transformed: didn’t people at the time of the Talmud at least know that this new detail about the lamp oil was invented? But if you want to know how it’s possible to accept readily a new myth, and project it backwards, as if it had always been part of the story, I can tell you, because I lived for six years near Boston, the heart of Red Sox Nation, when the Red Sox baseball team finally reversed the Curse of the Bambino, winning the World Series for the first time in 86 years.  Everybody in New England knows what the Curse of the Bambino is, but it's possible that some of you might not. The Bambino is Babe Ruth, who the Red Sox infamously sold to The New York Yankees, their arch rival, in 1920...

PDF
   
Gossip
October 25, 2009
PDF

Growing a Church 
October 4, 2009

     ...In the Pastoral congregation, "Community" is the end goal and is regularly celebrated. In the Program congregation, the focus is on the church's mission, and community is a by-product. Yet, ironically, when community is a by-product of a group of people working together towards a healthy vision, it is a much stronger form of community than when people seek community for its own sake. I am reminded of the Black Church in the Civil Rights Movement, which, led by Rev. Dr. King sought to end racial discrimination and enter a new Promised Land, for millions of people. They kept their Eyes on the Prize while singing, "We Shall Overcome." Community in the present was not the goal, but a by-product of working together towards a vision, in a church of shared values, stories, and song. The transition of any church from pastoral to program is generally one of turning outward -- not as a collection of individuals, but as a church with a vision, rooted in its faith and heritage...

PDF
audio
Rejoice in the Light
June 21, 2009
PDF
audio 
The Flower Communion
June 14, 2009
PDF
Audio
Emerson Without Mediator or Veil
June 7, 2009

PDF
audio

Love and Marriage
May 31, 2009
PDF
audio
Wake Now My Senses
April 26, 2009
PDF
Audio
 RTF
The Resurrection of Peter
April 12, 2009
PDF
Audio
RTF
Interfaith
April 5, 2009
PDF
RTF
audio
Mental Health and Human Rights
March 22, 2009
PDF
RTF

Audio
Deep Ecology
Feb 22, 2009
PDF  RTF
Audio
Presence
January 11, 2009 

May we have compassion for ourselves and others,
Knowing that deep hurts lead people to fear life, to fear the present moment.
And yet, may we bring ourselves back. Again and again.
May we let go of our stories about others, about life, about ourselves.
May we seek the help of others.
May we seek the help of that Peace we find in Stillness, in Silence.
May we trust in Life.

RTF
PDF
Audio




2007-2008

Generation to Generation         
December 21, 2008

PDF

Water Communion:  The Soft Power of Water       
September 7, 2007

...Soft power is the power of nonviolence, the power of listening and creating relationship. Where hard power uses coercion, soft power uses persuasion. Where hard power seeks to control and stamp out dissent and difference, soft power celebrates diversity, seeking not uniformity but unity. Soft power says, when each of us becomes ourselves more fully, the community is blessed.

 PDF

To God or Not To God         
Sept 30, 2007

My religious perspectives have changed over time. As a child, I experienced what I now call God most strongly in nature, particularly in a field in the woods where I lived in Pennsylvania. God was something open, quiet, and peaceful in a place of life – it was something I felt most often alone or with a close friend. After several years I came to call it God because of a feeling of connection I experienced: with myself, with my companion or companions when I had them, and with this “other” that was the field – and the trees and the stream and the sky beyond. I know many who have had similar experiences without naming it God.

PDF

Trust              
September 23, 2007

Our decision to trust should not ignore our feelings or other information. Our personal safety depends on our willingness to pay attention to our feelings and information about others. Please don’t hear me as recommending that our trustful or mistrustful feelings be ignored. They are part of the information available to us and they have their place. As Berry says, let us keep a place for our information but know also that trusting is ultimately a decision, among the most creative we can make.

PDF

Beginnings       
September 16, 2007

There may be no time in life in which mindfulness and care are not valuable. Yet during transitions the quality of our conduct is especially important. I strongly believe that transitioning well in any area of your life helps you transition in other areas, including the last transition, death. Transitioning well applies to all three stages: ending, neutral zone, beginning.

PDF

Growing Our Faith - Now is the Time           
October 14, 2007

.. ...It was a blessing that you were born.
..... We each have a piece of the truth about God.
..... It matters what you do.
..... You don’t have to go it alone.

What would the world be like, if, each year or two, twice as many people carried a message like this in their hearts? I hope they are not all Unitarian Universalists: we need many perspectives, many ways of living, religious and secular, spiritual and scientific, many people and groups allied in our commitment to honor our connections, our unity, our being one human family among many families on this miraculous earth. I want to see Unitarian Universalism let its light shine. I want to see our light mingle with those of other life-affirming movements and traditions.

PDF 

Equal Marriage - What's God Got to Do with It?    
October 21, 2007

I have begun to talk about God, publicly... Some of you may squirm in your seats at the thought of my doing this. Some others of you may think, “Well, he’s the minister, he’s supposed to do that. But not me!” Some of you, I hope, will, after careful reflection, begin to speak about God not as if you knew everything, but as if you knew something – because you do. Consider how this current political issue relates to that which is sacred to you and to our faith. Practice articulating it. Dare to speak of your experience of the sacred, because each of us has a piece of the truth about God.

PDF

Day of the Dead         
October 28, 2007

If we could embrace death, dance with it, laugh with it, we would perhaps stop living in fear of death. We would be more at home with ourselves, living in respect for the natural limitations of life. It is interesting to me that El Dia De Los Muertos seems at first glance to be superstitious, full of magic and other-worldliness. And yet its effects are so practical. It helps people come to terms with death, with the death of others and ultimately our own death. It reconnects people with their family, both the living and the dead. It honors the past. It teaches people that they will become part of an honored past, and that they will be remembered as individuals, when they pass on.

PDF 

Inherent Worth and Dignity - Living Our First Principle
November 4, 2007

Our first Principle is a call to make the time and effort to get to know people in their particularities – especially those people from unfamiliar backgrounds. A religious community covenanted to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person is gently yet continuously stretching itself – noticing who is missing, actively seeking out those whose lives seem foreign, building relationships with and spreading the stories of those whose worth and dignity are jeopardized – and doing our best to help them be restored to a place of worth and dignity.

 PDF

The Second Mile - Loving One's Enemies
December 9, 2007

[Consider that] Jesus is saying: don’t fall into any of the standard roles in the drama of violence. Don’t be the victim, the avenger, the champion, the perpetrator, the collaborator, or the bystander. Disrupt the cycle of violence with something so unexpected it’s almost comical. Introduce a new role for which the other has no label. Surprise the abuser. Look him in the eye. Get him to see you not as a victim or object but as a human being, an individual who has just made a choice. Invite him to become not a perpetrator but a free person who can respond to your choice.

PDF
audio