The Second Sunday of Advent is a celebration of Love. Spend some time today focusing on your loved ones and then focus on how you, yourself, are loved.
As December opens up before us, we welcome in the gift of reflection. We turn toward our holiday celebrations and search for common threads of meaning.
We begin with Yule, the winter solstice, and we are invited to explore duality, cycles, and seasons, and to witness the Holly King being overcome by the Oak King. Yule reminds us that we all partake in the miracle of renewal.
Hanukkah, the festival of lights, commemorates a time of miracles when the faith of the Jewish people sustained them to reclaim their holy temple and keep the light of the menorah burning for eight days.
Christmas, the celebration of Jesus’ humble birth in a manger, offers us to revisit the miracle of birth and the desire to find saviors to heal the scars of humanity.
Here, in our church, you are just as much a holiday miracle as the turning of the earth, as persistence and dedication to a faith, as the creation of each new life. We see the love you give to others, the space you create to hold one another’s joys and sorrows, and the generosity and spirit you entrust to this community.
You are the holiday miracle. This community is one of miracle-makers.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. – Jesus Christ
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates. – Lao Tzu
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. – Buddha
“If your love for me requires that I hide parts of who I am, then you don’t love me. Love is never a request for silence.” By DeRay Mckesson
Join us for Worship: This Sunday, Cricket Hall will discuss the tension of Welcoming and the first principle.
Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.
We would love to have you come worship with us.
Children are welcome. There is an activity for young children during the service.
The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom.
From Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray’s Facebook: “To be a faith of action with love as our doctrine doesn’t mean we live it perfectly, but it does mean we are called again and again to learn, to make amends, to restore relationship, to choose love.
This Sunday, our youth will talk about mothers and Mother’s Day.
Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Uptown Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.
We would love to have you come worship with us.
Children are welcome. There is childcare and an activity for young children during the service.
The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom. You may park on the south side of the building, which is marked reserved for the PWA.
We seek our place in the world
and the answers to our hearts’ deep questions.
As we seek, may our hearts be open to unexpected answers.
May the light of our chalice remind us that this is a community of warmth, of wisdom, and welcoming of multiple truths.
Gathered Here (3 Times)
Gathered here in the mystery of the hour.
Gathered here in one strong body.
Gathered here in the struggle and the power.
Spirit draw near.
Responsive Reading: Seven Promises
Let us live lightly on the Earth, beginning with our church community, for we respect the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Let us embrace others both near and far in hope and compassion,
for we lift up the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.
Let us remember that everyone bears responsibility for the health of our congregation, for we affirm the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process.
Let us remember that everyone bears responsibility for the health of our congregation, for we affirm the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process.
Let us respect individual religious paths, even those we do not understand, for we aspire to accept one another and to encourage spiritual growth.
Let us remain open to new ideas, knowing that we need not be afraid of change, for we trust in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
Let us remain open to new ideas, knowing that we need not be afraid of change, for we trust in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
Let us treat others as we would like to be treated, for we desire justice, equity and compassion in human relations. Let us listen actively and speak and act respectfully to others, for we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person
Music: Light One Candle – Peter, Paul, & Mary
Offering and Response (Unison)
For the gifts which we have received—and the gifts which we, ourselves, are—may we be truly grateful.
Yet more than that, may we be committed to using these gifts to make a difference in the world: to increase love and justice; to decrease hatred and oppression; to expand beloved community; to share, and to keep sharing, as long as ever we can. Amen.
Lesson: Love Is Too Strong a Word
When Robert and I were first married and new UUs, we would spent Christmas in West Virginia with my family and then go to North Carolina where his sister was living. The year our daughter was born, our then brother-in-law, who was the UU minister in Greensboro, gave us this tape, and I first listened to it in the dark, driving over the mountains back to Tennessee. Vonnegut’s ideas really spoke to me then, and listening to him again now, I think shaped my ideas of faith more than I ever realized.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Ware Lecture, UUA General Assembly, 1984
Almost 35 years later, UUism has largely ignored what Vonnegut had to say that night. Love is still the doctrine of this church, we have stood on the side of love, and now we side with it.
It was hard to find readings and music for this service. I discovered through a variety of searches that there are no hymns, UU, Christian, or otherwise, about respect. There were no chalice lightings or readings about respect, except for a few about the interdependent web. The idea for the prelude came from a Vonnegut quote:
Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, ‘Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency’.
― Kurt Vonnegut Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! (1976)
Vonnegut wondered what Jesus really said in Aramaic. All we have are the Gospels written in Greek, so I started there. In both “Love your neighbor” and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the word used is “agape“, which is one of the many Greek words for love, sometime translated loving kindness. When the Bible was translated into Latin, “caritas” – what became charity in English, was used in the love chapter from Paul’s letter, but “diligio” in Love your neighbor. Diligio is the root of what became diligent and diligence. Diligio means something more like esteem, regard for, taking care, respect, than what we now think of as charity, or of love. Respect God, and respect your neighbor.
I thought we would try a unison reading of the Love Chapter of Corinthians, to see how it feels to say Respect rather than Love.
Unison Reading
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not respect, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not respect, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not respect, it profiteth me nothing.
Respect suffereth long, and is kind; respect envieth not; respect vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Respect never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, respect, these three; but the greatest of these is respect.
– I Corinthians 13, King James Version
Hymn: Spirit of Life
Words and Tune: Carolyn McDade
Spirit of Life, come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;
move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold me close; wings set me free;
Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.
Joys and Sorrows
(Please save comments and announcement for the end of the service)
If you woke this morning with a sorrow so heavy that you need the help of this community to carry it;
or if you woke with a joy so great that it simply must be shared, now is the time for you to speak.
…..
For the joys and sorrows that haven’t been spoken, but which remain in the silent sanctuaries of our hearts.
These joys and griefs, spoken and unspoken, weave us together in the fabric of community.
Silent Meditation
Song: Go Now In Peace (3 times)
Go now in peace, go now in peace
May our love and care surround you
Everywhere, everywhere, you may go
Closing: May we go forth from this place – Charles A Howe
May we go forth from this place thankful for the life that sustains and renews us, and open to the grace that surrounds and surprises us.
May we go forth from this place with openness and with thanksgiving.
The chalice flame is extinguished Until once again ignited by the strength of our communion.
Since 1961, every year at the UUA General Assembly there is a special lecture called the Ware Lecture.
This year’s speaker is Brittany Packnett.
“Brittany Packnett is a leader at the intersection of culture and justice. Cited by President Barack Obama as a leader who’s “voice is going to be making a difference for years to come,” Brittany is an unapologetic educator, organizer, writer, and speaker.
Brittany is an alum of Washington University in St. Louis, American University in Washington, and is a current Aspen Institute Education fellow. She is a proud Advisory Board Member of Rise To Run, an organization committed to recruiting grassroots, diverse, progressive women to run for office, and Erase The Hate, NBC/Universal’s Emmy-Winning initiative to rid the world of discrimination.
Ultimately, Brittany is a proud Black woman who believes that freedom is within our grasp—as long as we unleash love, and build our power, because “power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.” (MLK)” For more information read this article.
The lecture is tonight at 8:30pm and will be live streamed.
We will be joining UUFM tomorrow at their church in Morgantown. Sunday May 20 at 10:45 AM at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Morgantown, Rev. Rose Edington and Rev. Mel Hoover will present “Love Will Guide us,” as the guests of UUFM and West Fork UUs. “Mel and Rose,” as retirees, still work on the state and national levels to promote social justice on many levels. Active elders in Black LIves of Unitarian Universalism, they will talk about the Intersectionality of “Race” and “Choice,” reminding us that: Black and Women’s Lives Matter. We will celebrate the inherent worth and dignity of one another together on Sunday. Please come.
The world aches for us to join together and bring about healing, toil for justice, and produce ever-increasing love. This is our calling. Go forth and act accordingly. Amen.
