Sermons given at UUCB, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley July 5, 2026 Becoming What We Believe Intern Minister: Liesl Dees A religious life is not only about what we believe, but what we practice. We’ll reflect on the sacred work of living our faith beyond Sunday morning—shaping lives rooted in love, justice, and compassion.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley June 28, 2026 Reading The World Intern Minister: Liesl Dees What counts as a sacred text? As we continue our series on Reclaiming and Reimagining Religion, we’ll explore wisdom found not only in scripture, but also in literature, life, and landscape. Together, we’ll reflect on how we learn to read the sacred woven throughout our lives.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley June 21, 2026 Glitter and Grit Rev. Kathryn Jay

A Prophetic Imagination Rev. Liesl Dees Prophets are often imagined as lone figures predicting doom. But what if prophecy is really the courage to tell the truth, name what others refuse to see and call people back to relationship, justice, and compassion. Together, we’ll reclaim prophecy not as supernatural prediction but as the sacred work of imagining a more loving world.

Ministerial Intern Liesl Dees Prayer is often imagined as speaking into silence. But what if prayer is an exchange of longing, listening, wonder, and response? We continue our series on Reclaiming and Reimagining Religion by exploring prayer as a practice of attention, connection, and presence.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley May 31, 2026 Community in Bloom We celebrate our annual flower communion with the recognition that we bloom always in relationship. Like the interdependent community of flowers and pollinators, we depend on each other more than we know to express our unique and sacred beauty. Bring a flower to celebrate! Rev Marcus Liefert

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley May 24, 2026 Sound of Spirit Rev Liesel Dees As we begin our series on Reclaiming and Reimagining Religion, we start with the wisdom of our bodies. On this Pentecost Sunday, we’ll riff on the New Testament story of embodied spirituality through a jazz lens, featuring special guest trumpeter Delbert Anderson.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley May 17, 2026 The Understory We know some of the biggest stories that shape the world and human society are rapidly changing. Those changes show up in the small and specific realities of our own lives and our own community. How do we practice creating beloved community by living in the moral framework of interdependence here and now?

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley April 26, 2026 The Bark and the Heartwood Rev Marcus Liefert Learning to live in a complex reciprocity asks us to grow inward and outward at the same time. The fact that the ground we stand on is not as solid as we were led to believe is both terrifying and liberating, an invitation to tend to the semipermeable membranes between ourselves and the world wit...

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley April 19, 2026 Earthlings Rev. Kathryn Jay We often think of rebels as folks fighting alone against the status quo. But we are all part of the crew, transforming our grief and anger into action. In this Earth Day service, we’ll ground ourselves in the simultaneous realities of lament and hope.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley April 12, 2026 What You Can Depend On Rev. Marcus Liefert Our culture's economic system and mechanistic worldview teach us to understand relationality as fundamentally transactional. But at our roots we live in a complex interdependence, which requires relating to our inevitable disappointments and frustrations not with the fix-it attitude of a manager, bu...

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley April 5, 2026 Alleluia Anyway Rev. Marcus Liefert Like each of our lives and the times we live in, the stories of Easter and Passover are rife with joy and struggle intertwined. With all that would bury us in the tomb, how do we rise up and sing alleluia anyway?

Sustaining Fire Rev. Marcus Liefert To keep a flame burning, we watch and feed it so it does not go out. But fire can also be sustaining: offering warmth, light, and a place for people to gather. Our spiritual lives are rarely simple, and the work of love is complicated. We live within complexity—tending the fire of love and searching for clarity in its warmth.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley March 22, 2026 Claimed by Ash Rev. Marcus Liefert Before it can be transformed, loss must be witnessed. What can we learn from communities that have been shrouded in ash but refused to grieve alone?

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley March 15, 2026 Smoke and Memory Rev. Marcus Liefert We are the inheritors of a tradition that believes in the sovereign self — the individual who chooses, who transforms, who transcends. But what do we do with the inheritance we never chose? How might we be led by Sankofa, the Akan symbol of the courage to turn and face what you’re already carrying?

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley March 8, 2026 Raging and Refining Rev. Marcus Liefert The prophet Malachi promises a refiner’s fire — patient, purposeful, transforming. But some fires don’t refine. They just rage.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley March 1, 2026 The Good News Rev. Kathryn Jay Unitarian Universalism can be hard to explain and we are often uncomfortable testifyng about the power of our faith. But what if we tried? We could be the spark of love that helps transform the world.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley March 1, 2026 The Good News Rev. Kathryn Jay Unitarian Universalism can be hard to explain and we are often uncomfortable testifyng about the power of our faith. But what if we tried? We could be the spark of love that helps transform the world.

Technological innovations have led to a more and more "frictionless" society. But what if friction is just what we need to grow our spirits and warm our souls?

Rev. Marcus Liefert No one window holds all the light; no one angle tells the whole truth. In a world shaped by dislocation, spiritual community can be a place where light is held in common, shadows are named without shame, and every room is trusted to be illumined by the same enduring source.

Healing begins with honest reckoning. As civil rights activist James Baldwin reminds us, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Ministerial intern Liesl Dees draws on her experience in building solidarity with an Indigenous community to reflect on what courage and humility ask of us as we tell the truth about past harms—and begin the work of re...

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley February 1, 2026 People of Color Caucus (POCC) and Rev. Marcus Liefert, Service Leaders

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley January 25, 2026 STAINED GLASS JOY Rev. Marcus Liefert Joy rarely arrives as pure light. It is colored by grief, memory, fear, and longing—beautiful, complex, and sometimes fragile. We honor joy not as a reward for spiritual success, but as light refracted through real lives, asking how communities can celebrate brightness without demanding it.

Like most of our kind now and through history, we live our lives in the shadow of empire. Dislocation—the process of becoming separated from traditional cultural practices and connection to a specific place and people—casts long shadows. Injustice compounds dislocation, deepening shadows across lives already deprived of access to safety, dignity, and belonging. As we honor Martin Luther King Jr.’s...

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley January 11, 2026 LETTING IN THE LIGHT AS IT COMES Rev. Marcus Liefert “This living is a guesthouse,” wrote Mevlana Rumi, inviting us to welcome the whole wild array of our human experiences as guests. The light arrives in our guesthouse through many windows: sometimes glaring, sometime illuminating, sometimes distorting, always sourced in the sacred. In th...