Your minister is not, cannot be, your friend.

In the Bible, there’s a pretty well-known story about David and Goliath. Goliath, a huge warrior from the side of the Philistines, challenged someone from the side of the Israelites to battle. David was chosen and he knew that even with all of the armor in the world, he would not be able to win...

Editor's note: This sermon was prepared for a white congregation, and thus speaks to those who identify as white, centering the dismantling of white supremacy from a white perspective....

Given that Unitarian Universalists believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all people, not just black people, why should we say “black lives matter” rather than “all lives matter”? To answer this question, we must draw a distinction between a faith stance and a description of reality.

This sermon refers to, and includes, the emerging ritual of a "chocolate communion." If you're seeking to incorporate our Unitarian Universalist values into such a ritual, we recommend providing an organic fair-trade product like the one...

The statement Black Lives Matter might be hard to hear because it floats. It is a bit of hyperbole. There is no counter point, no balancing narrative. This is something our culture is not accustomed to. We are used to having a good guy and a bad guy, a protagonist and an antagonist. We’ve seen...

Reading From The Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 40:1-11) Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness...

We are in the midst of advent, friends, and I have to admit how much I love this season. Like most clergy I feel that it is my job, 24/7/365 to orient the world to the best of my ability toward peace, love, hope and joy....

At the beginning of this sermon, pictures of the five black people killed by police officers were projected for the congregation to see as each was named. At the end of the sermon, photo portraits of each were placed on chairs as candles were lit for them. This is Tamir Rice. Tamir Rice is twelve...

Leonard Cohen sings to us there’s “a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” I believe this is one of the most important insights we can have. And so, today I want to talk about that crack, that wound we each have. Today let’s reflect a little about something perhaps a bit...

Every June, representatives of the congregations in the Unitarian Universalist Association gather for the annual General Assembly. Each year as we do so, we try to shed some light on a local issue of justice, and we invite people of all faiths to join us in working to make our world a better place.

We are five days away from what is has come to be traditionally celebrated as the birth of Jesus of Nazareth....

Many of us have stories about God. A college student once told me how he asked questions about God in his childhood church and the leaders did not know how to answer. He decided that God must not be real....

Gadgets: The downfall of a free society, electric litter paving an inexorable path to our culture’s moral, intellectual, spiritual, and inevitable destruction. If you are an American living in the 21st century, you likely have fretted over this topic, or some variation on it. You might even have...

Radical hospitality. Radical means “out of the ordinary,” “revolutionary,” even. So what would it mean to receive someone—a stranger—with a presence that was not just polite, but to receive them with revolutionary generosity? Activist Rosemarie Harding remembers her growing-up days, in...

When I was in third grade at Evergreen School in Plainfield, NJ, my best friend was John Carvana. At 8 years old, I was awkward physically and socially, and I was drawn to John’s intelligence and easy grace. The friendships of young boys are less about whispered secrets than about hanging out and...

Bob and Addie Polk had moved into the neighborhood in 1970, when the little houses were relatively new, and through the years they had been friendly with the neighbors. After her husband died, Addie kept more to herself, increasingly limited by declining health in older age....

I had jet-lag. That’s my excuse—that, and it was a hot, humid Sunday afternoon in Chicago, the end of a three-day family reunion. All of us were well-fed and happy, but tired and...well, the family had been together for three days. When my aunt remembered that she needed to return the flower...

On the cusp of this new day in our nation’s history, seems like everyone has something to say. I have been deluged with emails from the various groups I try to pay attention to: Planned Parenthood, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture,...

Call to Gather “The struggle of today is not altogether for today; it is for a vast future also.” -- Abraham Lincoln’s annual message to Congress, December 3, 1861[1] Reading: “The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this...