Unity Church Sermon Podcasts

A Standing on the Side of Love Valentine's Day service.

All our wise and heartfelt words amount to dust and ashes if we don’t live out our values in the world. Rob and Worship Associate Amy Kujawski will begin our series of services on love by taking a long, hard look at the way of love the Greeks knew as agape .

It is so hard to tell a decent story. It is even harder to tell a story that is actually true. By what power, by what authority do we tell the stories of our lives. The private stories, the public stories… The stories that insist on being told… With what strength of heart, with what sense of courage do we share our witness of the world? And, more deeply, what is the power of our honest word? Join...

It doesn’t seem to make logical sense. How does it take courage to let go, to surrender? What are the costs and benefits for individuals and congregations of having the courage to surrender, to let go?

Martin Luther King, Jr. stood in the line of the prophets. Unitarian Universalist theologist James Luther Adams was a passionate advocate for the "priest and prophethood of all believers." This year we honor the memory and ministry of Dr. King by asking how we all might be both priests and prophets.

Is it possible to break out of a pattern of living that doesn’t fit any longer? People all over the world and even in our community can testify to the courage it takes to do so. Explore the dimensions of courageous and authentic living.

We begin each new year with a memorial service for those who have died in the previous year. Rob, Janne, and Lissa eulogize men and women whose lives have shaped the world of art or politics, literature or science.

On the Christian holiday calendar, between the joyful celebrations of the birth of Jesus and the wonder of Epiphany, there is an event entitled the "Massacre of the Innocents," which marks Herod's ruthless and violent search for the baby Jesus. How do we stand against violence, especially done to the most vulnerable in our world? Lissa Gundlach illuminates gifts and challenges of this difficult te...

This is a season of preparation, of anticipation and waiting for new birth and new light to appear once more. Explore the dimensions of preparation for the rebirth of the holy within, among and beyond us.

What Are You Waiting For? — Rob Eller-Isaacs In the season set aside for waiting Rob and Worship Associate Ann Kirby McGill offer us a service intended to provide an overview of theologies of incarnation. Why would God choose to put on flesh and walk among us? What do we really mean when we talk about the God within us?

Thanksgiving / Partner Church Service

Fellow Travelers, Common Journey — Lissa Gundlach The poet Rumi wrote: "O you who’ve gone on pilgrimage where are you, where, oh where? Here, here is the Beloved! Oh come now, come, oh come! Your friend, he is your neighbor, he is next to your wall." Jerusalem may be the most Holy city in the world, a site of pilgrimage for Christians, Jews, Muslims, and seekers alike. The Temple Mount is a shared...

Some pilgrimages involve travel to a foreign or holy destination. Others actually can occur right at home. Janne and Worship Associate Mary Baremore will explore the dimensions of staying home, recognizing the sacred lessons available in our everyday lives and the riches to be explored in the pilgrimage within.

Our series on pilgrimage begins with a service for the Day of the Dead. When we move through the world with pilgrim eyes even our memories take on new life. Mary Oliver writes, "it matters how you carry it, books, bricks, grief." Pilgrims have to learn to travel light.

We are all sojourners, strangers, on a quest to find deeper meaning and connection in life. We are all strangers but we are all brothers and sisters. The service will explore the soul's work of finding a true religious home. Rev. Abhi Janamanchi has been serving the Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater, Florida since 1999. He is a native of India and a third-generation member of the Brahmo Samaj,...

After scoring a run in the sixth to tie the game, the Indians forged ahead with two runs in the seventh. Luis Valbuena singled to start and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. With two outs, Brantley sneaked a single through the right side of the infield… The Twins lost that game, 3-1. Cleveland taught us about what sacrifice really means. Sometimes, we think of it as an act of losing, as surrend...

San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk used to begin every speech by saying, "My name is Harvey Milk, and I’m here to recruit you." He was asking us all to come out; all of us, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, queer and each and every ally, all of us together have a right to live open and authentic lives.

What’s Love Got to Do with It? — Janne Eller-Isaacs What does sacrifice mean in a liberal religious context? As its meaning becomes more elusive in today’s post-modern world, is it possible that it is exactly what we need now?

Stuck in a dead-end job? Move. Or don’t. Sometimes a change of attitude or perhaps, of consciousness is really what’s called for. Could it be that our upwardly mobile, self-centered culture puts too much emphasis on moving on and too little emphasis on staying put? There are times in our lives when only faith can see us through.

How do we know when we have been "called" to particular work or tasks? How do we respond to numerous calls coming from different directions? How do we do as Quaker educator Parker Palmer says, "Let our lives speak"? Janne explores this dimension of vocation.

Labor advocates and spiritual progressives have found common cause for a century and a half in Minnesota and the nation. The righteousness of all God’s children getting fair recompense and enjoying the fruit of their labor is foundational for the Judeo-Christian tradition, and others too. After decades of progress earlier in the 20th century for working people, Labor Day 2009 finds us at low ebb....

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that our real sacred text is "...life passed through the fire of thought." In other words, we find the holy when we share and process our stories with each other. This Sunday, we will explore the ways storytelling and storyhearing let us cross barriers of difference and allow us to meet each other in our deepest humanity.

This I Believe: Holding Onto Doubt — Richard Foushée During the past year I have struggled with two of the central issues of religion. Join in the exploration and personal reflections on faith and doubt and what they mean to our lives.

In his book A Path with Heart , Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield writes, "...it is not by moving rocks that we find happiness and awakening, but by transforming our relationship with them." When we suffer, it is often because we are defining ourselves by a life story that we have come to believe as absolute truth. We define ourselves by this narrative because in many ways it is easier than the work...