2008 Sermons
All That We Need
—a Christmas Eve homily—
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
12/24/08
. No matter how often I, or any of us, may let our own self-focused expectations, grudges or games keep us from the love that is waiting for us, the seasons will come and the seasons will go, taking with them more of our always finite time together, precious days and nights that are ripe with possibilities for forgiveness and redemption if we can humbly let go, reach out, and embrace life not as we think it should be, but as it is.
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Finding Focus
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines 12/13&14/08
“if we do not consciously bring to mind our motivation for others not to suffer…the more superficial aspects of our life take over, and we become fixated on who didn’t put the milk away or who’s hogging the remote. We lose touch with the deeper reason we’re together” which is to “experience wisdom and compassion”, to open our hearts to what he calls the “precious situation” of being human.
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Is There Enough God Here?
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
11/30
“I’m just not sure you are spiritual enough,” she told him, her words hanging in the air for a few moments while he tried to figure out what to say.
“I’m definitely spiritual,” he explained. “I just haven’t found the words or the place to articulate what I believe.”
More silence.
“I guess you will just have to trust me on this one,” he added.
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The Best Defense May Be No Defense
--annual Bowen Family Systems Theory service--
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
November 15 & 16, 2008
Early in my study of Bowen theory I attended a workshop led by Peter Steinke, who is a noted expert in the application of Bowen theory to congregational life. He said something that I have not forgotten, even if I have, at times, struggled to understand how to apply its wisdom. He said that when we are in conversations in which tension or anxiety is high, especially when we find ourselves in an emotionally-charged environment and someone is verbally challenging or even attacking us with accusations or assumptions about our behavior or intentions, we would do best to respond according to some guidelines, summarized in three simple sentences. “Don’t defend. Don’t justify. Don’t explain.”
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The Sun Also Rises
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
11/8&9/08
I don’t want to overstate the importance of this election. I don’t think any of us can fully understand or predict what will come of all this. After all, just as I said back in 2004, “the sun will continue to rise in the morning and set in the evening, our companions will still need our affection, attention and care, and our country will only be as beautiful and strong as the degree to which we can work together to make it so.”
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Prophetic Humanhood
--a service to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the Boone Women’s Suffrage March--
Bob Glass and Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
10/18&19/08
The program that day a few years ago was to be presented by Dwight Saunders with some assistance from Frances Craig. Dwight and Frances were longtime and stalwart members of both the church and Unity Circle and were considered pillars of both. They each passed away earlier this year. The program was on the history of Unity Circle - the same group I was sitting with. In the program, Dwight gave a lot of information that was new to me and that I quickly forgot. But he also mentioned that in 1908, several Unity Circle members marched in a suffrage parade in Boone, Iowa that was likely the first such parade in the nation. In addition, the parade was instigated by an associate pastor of the First Unitarian Church, Rev. Eleanor Gordon, the life-long friend of Mary Safford. Eleanor was here helping her friend who had health problems. You may remember that when Eleanor and Mary were children together, they played church on Sundays, one of them being the minister and the other being the congregation.
Well, I was stunned by that part of Dwight’s report. That people from our church, in the organization I was sitting with, would have been involved in something so pioneering in a movement culminating in such a massively important piece of American history like that just about took my breath away.
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Living as if...
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
10/11&10/12
I was seven years old when I had my first encounter with theology. My mother made a batch of fudge, placed it in the refrigerator, and decreed it could not be sampled until after supper. I was not pleased. I contrived every scheme I could imagine to sneak some, but someone always seemed to be lurking around the kitchen.
At about four o’clock I got what seemed like an unbelievable break. My mother and sister had to go to the store, leaving me alone for a little while. Mother must have been reading my mind, because she gave me a warning on her way out. “Just because I’m not here,” she said, “doesn’t mean you’re alone with the fudge. God is watching you.”
The word “theology” means God-study. As they drove off I was studying hard. It did not take long to conclude I was a seven year old atheist. Boy, did that fudge taste good.
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Defense, Offense or No Fence
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
10/4&5/0
As Oscar Wilde said, “Always forgive your enemies—nothing annoys them so much.” But true forgiveness is not about immediate gratification, and it is not about manipulating others or getting something in return. Forgiveness is about dropping the barriers that keep us from moving forward in our lives. It’s not about defense or offense. It’s about no fence.
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Going Public
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
September 20 & 21, 2008
Harry was asking me to not worry so much about others’ ideas of God, and to speak more humbly and directly on behalf of the God I do believe in. He was suggesting that I counter bad religion not with no religion, but with better religion.
These circumstances are where religious liberals tend to be at a disadvantage compared to our more orthodox sister and brothers, who can simply claim to know God’s will. What’s a UU to do…especially those atheistic or agnostically inclined UUs who may believe that the very notion of God is at best a distraction if not an abomination itself?
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Free and Responsible Truthiness
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
9/7/08
In the 2005 pilot episode of his satirical cable news show The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert coined the word “truthiness,” which, before making it into the title of this morning’s sermon, was named as a “Word of the Year” by both the American Dialect Society and Merriam-Webster. Truthiness is a word he created to express not literal truth, but, he has said, “something that seems like truth—the truth we want to exist.” Colbert contends:
“Truthiness is tearing apart our country....It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? [He asks] What you want to be true, or what is true?”
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Weight of the World
by Doug Hoffmann
Read [PDF]
Sorting Ourselves Out ’
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
8/24/08
The overall message of Bishop’s book and this sermon, is not that we need to marry those with whom we disagree. Sure it seems to work for James Carville and Mary Matalin, but as your minister I am inclined to counsel you toward a little more compatibility when choosing a life partner. Still, I appreciate the imperative that we simply must find ways to increase our connections across the lines that keep us divided. We need to nurture within ourselves, to whatever degree we are capable, some “men of the earth” instincts so that we are not so quick to kick up the dirt of our differences, but rather to keep turning the earth over, seeing that exchanges of diverse opinions can actually be a means towards cultivation of what is possible between and among us…especially when we don’t take ourselves, or our positions, quite so seriously. Some of us, at least, must be willing to consider interacting with those who don’t think like we do (whatever way that may be). The message, as I translate it anyway, is that we must keep ourselves open to the creative interchange that is our best hope as individuals, as churches, as nations, as a human race. Creative interchange doesn’t suggest that we must agree with one another. It does, however, assume that we are doing our best to humbly put the humanity of others front and center and to engage with the expectation that relationships between diverse people and communities matter. Having and growing connections with those outside our normal sphere of reference will further enhance our understanding of how interdependent we truly are, especially in a nation that aspires to be a democracy.
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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.
....Read the Sermon
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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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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