A Drunken Wager, Changing and Changeless
Rev Paul D. Daniel
This sermon is about Job set in a modern setting. God and Satan are sharing some drink after a hard week. As men sometimes do they get to bragging about how powerful they are. Next thing you know Satan bets God that if tested, Job, God’s most loyal believer, would curse God. The following takes off from there…
Third Sunday Potluck will follow the service.
Sunday, April 10
The Banned Bible
Guest Speaker: Jennifer L. Koosed, Professor of Religious Studies at Albright University
Lay Leader: Allan Pallay
In the early years of Christianity, hundreds of gospels, letters, acts of the apostles, and apocalypses were written and yet only 27 are collected together in what we now call the New Testament. The New Testament, then, represents only a small segment of these early forms of Christianity. What was left out? What do these other stories say about Jesus and the early movement around him? As diverse as Christianity is today, it was even more so in the
first few centuries and these “banned” books give us insight into how these other Christians thought and what they believed.
The Combination Spaghetti Pot & Clam Steamer
Guest Speaker : The Reverend David Hunter
Today we welcome back Rev. David Hunter, who first visited us on December 6th, 2015. His sermon reflects on a 1981 New Yorker cartoon – Man sitting in front of TV: “How much would you pay for the secrets of the universe? Wait, don’t answer yet. You also get this 6-quart covered combination spaghetti pot and clam steamer. Now how much would you pay?”
Let us talk and converse…
I wanted to begin my column with a personal note. I have recently moved my residency to Willingboro NJ. where I first lived more the 60 years ago. One of my circles of life has come “round again”. This is a happy move as I am now living with my partner Rick.
This move has reminded me of the beauty and necessity of good interpersonal relationships in life, whether between a couple or with parishioners within a church. To help you understand my style of communication it will be helpful to know a few things:
I am somewhat vision impaired so I tend to send written communications in large font. I am not YELLING, which is generally done in all CAPS…LOL. I tend to respond to emails in short direct sentences, not to be rude but, in the interest of time which is limited because of my hours. Also, it is cultural. I am a north Jersey/ NY talker, sometimes very direct and compounded by my Jewish background which means in verbal communications, all things are stories, and not simple recitations of facts. That’s why my emails are short and my spoken words long. What some say in a sentence we Jews can only say in a paragraph. My motto is “never say in a few words, what you can say in many”!… lol. I have learned and find it interesting that our Pottstown area is far more reserved then the ethnic environs in which I grew up. I am guessing that many at UUFP have German or northern European roots. “Vive La Difference”.
Our different backgrounds are welcome for that mix of people is a blessing, opening us to new experiences and learning, but, yes it does present some real world challenges. It is important for all of us to speak as clearly as possible and to reach out to the person we are in dialogue with to clarify what we think we have heard. Direct conversation is easier than emails because you get cues from our tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, and volume; to name just a few. This is a reason not to have important conversations thru emails. Too much room for misunderstanding.
All this is to say, “let us assume, the person we are in dialogue with has the best intentions and motivations”. If that proves otherwise then asking for clarification is helpful, using, “I and feeling statements” not accusatory or with hostility. We are all human and subject to miscommunications, hearing and speaking. The beauty of this community is that we are motivated by love to listen with an open heart and charitable ear. We can be open to each other’s thoughts, feelings and words.
In closing, I invite you into dialogue with me and each other so that we can continue to build that shining new Jerusalem.
Rev. Paul D. Daniel
minister@uupottstown.org 678-939-4854
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Thoughts on a Theme of Transformation
Speaker: Jennifer Gittings-Dalton
In some ways, we all need to be transformed. We are often in the grip of behaviors that need to be outgrown to become more healthy and whole individuals, and to build a more just society. But how do we find renewal in such a difficult world? I think the unfolding power of spring, celebrated for millennia by our ancestors, and the solemn festivals of Easter and Passover, offer hints about the process of transformation.
Thoughts on a Theme of Transformation
Speaker: Jennifer Gittings-Dalton
In some ways, we all need to be transformed. We are often in the grip of behaviors that need to be outgrown to become more healthy and whole individuals, and to build a more just society. But how do we find renewal in such a difficult world? I think the unfolding power of spring, celebrated for millennia by our ancestors, and the solemn festivals of Easter and Passover, offer hints about the process of transformation.
3/20/16 Flower Communion Easter Sermon
A Rebirth of Hope
Rev. Paul D. Daniel, Minister
The Easter story begins in despair and hopelessness but ends in a renewal of our spirit,
a revival of hope through the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.
For Unitarian Universalist an immaculate conception and bodily resurrection are difficult if not impossible to believe
for it is not logical for someone to die and be physically reborn.
The Christian Story exists as a matter of faith, and it has a place in UU.
But Unitarian Universalist reject the supernatural but do believe that faith and reason can coexist in the search for truth embodied in these ancient mythic stories.
Even as UUs reject the particulars of the resurrection,
we also celebrate the victory of life over death, a resurrection of the spirit, life ever renewing.
We mark Easter as a seasonal rebirth after a long hard winter.
Life begins again where the grounds finally cracks open and the first crocus raises it head to the sun.
We recognize that when our spirit is crushed by the losses of living always brings,
there is hope again in the morning and peace at night as
the sources of our strength stirs once again.
In our more eclectic and earth centered ways,
we also honor this Christian myth and celebrate the fundamental cycle of the seasons with flowers, natures symbol of hope, renewal and life everlasting.
We follow in the traditions of a much more ancient understanding.
The Spring equinox welcomes in a greener time, life resplendent and renewed.
The fallow ground cracks open yielding up its buds, new born harbingers of hope and life.
Thus we celebrate nature’s beauty – flowers springing forth in all their glory and color: red, yellow, magenta, fuchsia, and all the hues of the rainbow.
As we view the dappled landscape, joy comes rushing back into our hearts.
How could we not be elated, hope grows amidst such splendor.
Like most Unitarian Universalists, I don’t believe the story of the resurrection literally.
As my colleague Mark Bulletin put it,
“I preach against the literal, the foolish notion that the ancient story is to be understood in authoritatively shallow and surface way, or else tossed into the garbage pail.
But at the same time, with my whole ministry I preach on behalf of a literate understanding of our ancient traditions,
one respectful of our life experiences, our reason, our passion, and a desire to live a good and honest life.”
I find synchronic in this and here in lies my hope when I face a sea of trouble. Our faith is the bridge over our distress and despair.
No matter how we might want to camouflage this day, it is still a profoundly human story about the life and death of Jesus.
Today we celebrate the ordinary transformed into the holy.
A carpenter and teacher, a man of humble origins who through the power of his spiritual presence,
his simple message of peace and hope, compassion and mercy, turned the world inside out, up-side down.
The awe inspiring part of this story is that an ordinary person born to poverty single handedly created
a new paradigm of what it meant to be human and a person of faith gathered in community.
Because of Jesus’ unique spiritual ministry his death was no less devastating for his disciples as
the death of a child to a parent, or of a partner to a spouse would be.
His crucifixion profoundly changed the disciple’s world for all times.
It seemed that sadness and inconsolable grief enveloped them without respite.
The world seemed without color, lifeless, devoid of joy.
This, no different than it might seem to us today, when we experience our own “dark night of the soul”.
Like the disciples before in the face of such devastation we to would need the communion of love, of life and hope that Jesus represented.
That is what the disciples thought they had forever lost. Devastation and grief is the all too human response to any tragedy.
After the resurrection, the disciples professed to see Jesus as a humble gardener,
a slave in the fields tending flowers, a stranger along the road to Emmaus.
It was in these encounters that they came to believe that they had experienced the spirit of Jesus, reborn to life as the risen Christ.
They needed that hope, if they were to have any faith and hope that life would bloom again after the storm has passed.
We to also need hope today, but perhaps of a different sort.
We need to believe that death can somehow yield to life that grief can surrender eventually to gladness.
It why we gather at Easter time, to share the company of others who struggle with the same pain of human existence.
Now, in this very moment we are assured that we are not alone.
We know that the message we seek on Easter, that life can emerge from death, that resurrection is possible,
will be heard here in this place, each year when the flowers bloom.
While we don’t believe in a bodily resurrection, we do believe that new life returns with the spring and
that the flowers we bring and share here today are a living symbol of our hope to live and love. Again.
Hope can and will push through the darkness of the loam and bloom in the nurturing, healing sunlight.
Peace and joy will once again shine on us as
the golden orb of the sun casts its beams over the crest of the mountains of sorrow.
So it is in the struggle to find the meaning of loss and death, of life itself that
we gather to mourn and be comforted, to celebrate and share the dawning of a new day.
And thus we come together to share the sorrow of loss, the joy of rebirth and renewal.
We seek; we can give and receive that love which we all need, regardless of how we understand Easter.
It matters not whether we see today as a celebration of bodily resurrection, mythic symbol of renewal, a rebirth of hope, or a turn of the pagan calendar and of the seasons.
The good news for this day is the triumph of joy over sorrow.
Today we open ourselves one again to a renewal of the heart, to living in the face of death,
to laughing in spite of the tears, to caring in the face of a world seemingly indifference to our existence,
and loving in response to the challenges of what it means to be human.
“To choose to love, is to choose to go on living.
That fundamental faith filled decision to love embodies the hope of resurrection, of our personal triumph of life over death.
For that we are grateful and moved by all that lives, abundant and rich.
Such is our triumph, and the fount of our gratitude to God, for this most amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.
(If I who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birthday of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting, touching, hearing, seeing, breathing, any—
lifted from the no of all nothing – human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(how the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)”. — e. e cummings.
Thus it is and shall be. Amen!
Easter Flower Communion
Rev Paul D. Daniel
We will celebrate a rebirth, a resurrection of hope and renewal as we enter the joy of spring with flowers. Please bring flowers to share as we create a community bouquet. Remember you will be invited to take home a different flower than the one you brought.
Third Sunday Potluck will follow the service.
Easter Flower Communion
Rev Paul D. Daniel
We will celebrate a rebirth, a resurrection of hope and renewal as we enter the joy of spring with flowers. Please bring flowers to share as we create a community bouquet. Remember you will be invited to take home a different flower than the one you brought.
Third Sunday Potluck will follow the service.
