2008 Sermons
Flags a Flyin’
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
8/10/08
The bright, florescent orange plastic flags went up one weekend morning a few months ago, just as the weather was beginning to finally turn from winter to spring. They caught my eye as I walked past a window in my house. I looked out and saw my across-the-street neighbor with his teenaged son, stringing them between two metal posts in his front yard. As I watched them carefully tie the plastic ends until the string was taught, I couldn’t help but wonder just what they were up to. Were they going to chop down some trees? Were they going to begin a construction project? Were they going to have a yard sale, or maybe set up a lemonade stand or a water station for a 10k race I hadn’t heard about? Just as quickly as the father and son had appeared, they finished their work and returned inside.
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Dr. Joan Faber McAlister
Talk on Fundamentalist Dialogue
July 27, 2008
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
In 2007, I attended a summer workshop for faculty about the spiritual needs of young adults. The leader argued that the success of ALIVE on campus spoke to needs we were failing to meet and showed us research about the significance of the college years as a time of spiritual, as well as intellectual, self-discovery. According to Marcia Baxter Magdola, author of a study on young adult education, the twenties are a period when people start to move from a “formulaic” to a “foundational” basis for belief and morality. Formulas are dictated by early authorities, but foundations are developed through a transformative process of self-creation. Educators need to support this journey of self-discovery, rather than just substitute one authority’s formula for another. By making religion and spirituality taboo topics in the classroom, we were hindering an important part of our student’s development (most of whom were in their twenties or would be by the time they left Drake). And we needed to find ways to address the topic without forcing our own religious and moral formulas onto students.
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Life-aholics Anonymous
Rob Heater
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines IOWA
Summer Service July 13, 2008
My topic today is Resentment and how it is better to give than to receive a resentment. But seriously… You may be thinking to yourself what do you mean by the word resentment. There are many definitions of the word resentment. One of my favorites is derived by breaking the word into it’s parts re- doing again and sentment meaning feeling. Resentment means feeling again or wallowing in the feelings generated by things that happened a long time ago or as recently as this morning ....
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Moving Mountains…and Houses
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
6/22/08
I ran into the church member at the grocery story. As I had been on sabbatical at the time, and we hadn’t seen each other for a few months, we exchanged the typical “How are you?” greetings. Then, thinking he would be intrigued, or at least amused, I told him about something I had done earlier that afternoon. After my brief story, he let out a kind of laugh—or maybe it was a clearing of the throat—followed by a “Wow” offered in the spirit of surprise, for sure, but not in the spirit of pleasure or admiration. “Wow,” he said, “that’s one of the more cynical things I’ve heard in a long time.”
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COME BEFORE WINTER Sermon by Douglas Smith 15 November 1992
Sometimes there is a Sermon that is "classic". The "Come before Winter" sermon is taught in many seminaries. Seldom has it been done so well by so gifted a speaker as Dougls Smith who served this congregation as Interim Minister for one year in 1992. Doug was minister to this church because the congregation demanded the UUA suspend its rule that Interim Ministers must come from outside. This sermon shows you why Doug was so important to this congregation. It has only recently been digitized.
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Wright and Wrong
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
6/15/08
Before I get too far into this topic, let me assure you that my sermon today is not intended to be an endorsement of Senator Obama, nor is it meant to be a blanket defense of Rev. Wright. I merely want to point out a few things that I feel have been mostly, if not entirely, left unsaid throughout this saga and then leave you to form your own opinions, as I always expect and encourage you to do.
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Can You Bear It?
--a sermon for our intergenerational flower service--
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
6/8/08
Was I to believe, then, that even the absence of challenges is something to be endured? Was my happiness something that I was going to have to bear?
Could I “endure” this happiness? Could I “tolerate” being happy?
Perhaps it seems absurd to even ask that question. To suggest that happiness is something to be endured is to really see the glass half empty, right? Surely we know people who would say, “Hey, just give me even the slightest taste of happiness, buddy, and I’ll show you how to tolerate it!”
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“The Question of God” with Rev. Dr. Marlene Walker
Sunday, May 4, 9:00 and 10:30 am Auditorium
The past few years have seen a spate of books written by increasingly vehement atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Where might our Unitarian Universalist understanding of God fit in to this conversation? Rev. Walker has been serving as the Interim Minister at Peoples Church in Cedar Rapids for the past two years. She has previously served congregations in CO, IL, MA, VA, and MD. A native of Boston, she has often referred herself as a living, breathing, walking interfaith organization. Raised jewish she became UU and christian in her 20s, later adding buddhism, feminist, pagan and native american spirituality along the way. She is theologically multilingual. Rev. Walker received her M. Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry in 1992 and a D. Min. in Feminist Liberation Theology from the Episcopal Divinity School in 1999.
The Rev. Dr. Marlene Walker declined to provide a copy of her Sermon indicating that she meant the Sermon to be heard and not read. Because of the controversial nature of her Sermon and the strong reaction of the UCDSM congregation, the web committee invites comments to be sent to the webmaster@UCDSM.ORG which will be put on the website in BLOG form. Only those comments that are signed will be published.
Read UCDSM member comments/BLOG on this Sermon
Rev. Charlotte Shivvers
The Observatory in the Fog April 13, 2008
Feels like I’m getting closer to why it’s haunted me. Fog as religious symbol, perhaps. But there’s something more – about that misty place of no control. Years ago in my Los Angeles congregation, a professor of the Berber language came back from sabbatical in Morocco and shared the Islamic phrase, inshalla. Muslims say it after almost every statement of intent – tiny or monumental. It means God willing. It’s a way of saying “I’m not in charge -- something larger is.” It acknowledges the fog – with respect. Actually I say it, too, more and more, but in my own language. For instance: There’s coffee after the service the good lord willing and the creeks don’t rise. Maybe that same respectful recognition of the unknown is stated in the bumper sticker, “Grace happens.”
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Life Among the Saints
A Sermon by the Rev. Oren A. Peterson
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
13 January 2008
I hesitate to cite the saints in this congregation for fear of overlooking anyone. Just walk out to the memorial garden and you will be reminded of them. Two saints come regularly to mind: Edna Griffin and Edna Harrington. Many of you will know of Edna Griffin, one of the first to lead opposition to segregation in our city. She won the battle with Katz Drugstore and became widely known in the country and the American Unitarian Association in Boston. She went on to become a Board member of the AUA where she served for many years. I first met her at a General Assembly workshop in the 1960’s. -- The other Edna—Edna Harrington, was a character unforgettable. She was the heart of the Alliance clothing sales and her broccoli soup was a hit at many a coffee hour. She had a crusty disposition but a heart of gold. A brain embolism brought about her death after a lengthy vegetative existence.
Humanism and UUism: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Marilyn Westfall
Presented at the 2007 American Humanist Association Conference
[T]here has been a shift in Unitarian Universalism away
from a humanistic center to a more eclectic mix of philosophies
and theologies. […] Some fear this trend, while other celebrate
it. Among the ministers surveyed, 39% said their congregations
had become “more spiritual,” 26% “’more diverse,” 19% “less
humanistic,” [my emphasis] and 15% more comfortable with “religious” language.
My school used to be notable for innovations in religious humanist theology. We used to be at the forefront of efforts [to] reconcile science and religion [my emphases]; now, visiting scientists reported that seminarians lacked basic scientific education. Humanist was a word often used in a derogatory sense in my UU classes and it was more often than not preceded by adjectives like “old”, “crusty”, “corpse-cold”, “bloodless”, and “unfeeling.” It was creepy to hear people use expressions like, “the congregation is waiting for the old humanists to die off before it changes the order of service.” It was more popular among students to be a Universalist … than a Unitarian, a feeler than a thinker, a prophet than a pastor, a theist than an atheist, and anything but a humanist.
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