First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin

Assistant Minister Marisol Caballero's sermon delivered on December 29, 2013. We carry around so many stresses with us in our daily lives. As we leave behind the rush of the holidays and think about beginning 2014 anew, we will ask ourselves which of these burdens are worth our effort to carry, and which ones might we set down?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on December 22, 2013. Solstice is the night, holy to the ancients, where we wait in darkness for the return of the light. What kinds of things spark in us to lift us from a place of unseeing, a place of uncertainty?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on December 15, 2013. We join together in our annual intergenerational Christmas Pageant as the shepherds, angels and royalty gather around the newborn holy child.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on December 8, 2013. Rev. John Murray brought Universalism to the New World. How did he get from an English debtor's prison to being chaplain in General Washington's army?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on December 1, 2013. If the Bible didn't drop out of the sky onto the top of Mt. Ararat, where did it come from? Did God write it? Does it have mistakes? How do we read it as religious liberals?

Assistant Minister Marisol Caballero's sermon delivered on November 24, 2013. We celebrate gratitude by engaging in generosity! The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's annual "Guest at Your Table" campaign kicks off this Sunday and continues through December. We learn about opportunities to support grassroots programs and organizers who are working to bring peace, justice, and compassion to...

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on November 17, 2013. The Iowa Sisterhood. The Universalists were among the first denominations to ordain women. These women had a picture of how church should be that differed somewhat from their colleagues of the time.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on November 10, 2013. Racism is deep in the human DNA. Most peoples of the world have some other people they paint as lazy, oversexed, untrustworthy and stupid. Is there a way to heal that in ourselves?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on November 3, 2013. What kinds of things can we do to strengthen our community? Conversation, shared tasks, vulnerability, sacrifice, these are some of the elements of strong community. What makes a church a community for the people who belong to it?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on October 27, 2013. The Sources don't really mention spookiness or magic, but we talk about it in a way that's appropriate for all ages in an inter-generational service about mystery.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on October 20, 2013. It's the final installment of our series on the Buddhist Eightfold Path. "Right Concentration," or meditation, is the practice recommended by the Buddhist teachers, and recently by the medical community. What is involved in it?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on October 13, 2013. It's Celebration Sunday! We are invited to bring our new pledges, or the affirmation of our 1-2-3 year pledges to the front of the sanctuary in celebration of our participation in this community, its mission and its ministries.

Assistant Minister Marisol Caballero's sermon delivered on October 6, 2013. The Unitarian Universalist Association has sold their historic Boston headquarters at 25 Beacon St. and has opted to move to the more modern, practical, and spacious digs of 24 Farnsworth. This decision to move has sparked little ambivalence, as UUs across the country either love the idea, believing that we are now able to...

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on September 29, 2013. One of the sources from which Unitarian Universalism draws are "Humanist teachings that counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit." We are believers in clarity of mind without making our reason into something we worship.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on September 22, 2013. The sixth element of the Buddhist eight-fold path is "right mindfulness." Do you have to give up multitasking? Do you have to do the dishes meditatively?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on September 15, 2013. Yom Kippur is the final day of the Jewish High Holy Days, which are about repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. It is also a day when you may work to be released from a vow you cannot keep. Let's talk about forgiving others, and forgiving ourselves too.

Assistant Minister Marisol Caballero's sermon delivered on September 1, 2013. So often we dismiss saccharine statements made by those who teach children as trite, "I learn just as much from them as they learn from me! " But, there is a sacred science behind it. The insights and discoveries of children and teens lend us a glimpse into ways of engaging with our universe and each other that the avera...

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on August 25, 2013. Margaret Sanger, an early activist for women's reproductive health was ridiculed, vilified and persecuted. She was far from perfect, but she still can be one of our heroes.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on August 18, 2013. In this book, a young Indian boy is shipwrecked, and ends up in a small lifeboat with a tiger. What might the tiger be in his life? What might it be in ours?

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on August 11, 2013. So much of UU conversation has been about what we don't believe. Let's talk about one thing handed down to us by Emerson and the Transcendentalists - that there is one soul for all things.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on August 4, 2013. We're afraid of all the wrong things.

Guest speaker Chris Jimmerson's sermon delivered on July 21, 2013. What is hope? One of the theologians we studied in seminary last year says that basically there is no such thing as hope, and we should abandon hope and embrace struggle because the struggle is all we have. I am thinking that would not make a very inspiring sermon. How do we have hope without it becoming just wishful thinking?

Assistant Minister Marisol Caballero's sermon delivered on July 14, 2013. I have heard the sentiment expressed that it is not UU to pray. Where do our misconceptions lie with regard to the spiritual practice of prayer and how might we explore this expression of faith as Unitarian Universalists?

Guest speaker Rev. Nathan Ryan's sermon delivered on July 7, 2013. How do we understand the most holy in a church where there is no creedal test and not everyone is a theist? Rev. Ryan leads us through this three-letter journey.

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on June 30, 2013. Another sermon in the series on the Buddhist Eightfold Path. Right livelihood means doing something with your life that helps the world, "enriching it, if we will make our seasons welcome here, asking not too much of earth or heaven, then a long time after we are dead, the lives our lives prepare will live here...," - Wendell Berry.